There’s something about a southern American accent that lends any fictional character the capacity to be be as unfeeling, awkward and hilarious as possible.

The Eastbound & Down writers realised this very early on when Danny McBride’s legendary Kenny Powers character exploded onto our TV screens and Bride and his co-writer  buddy Jody Hill have successfully delivered this kind of witty writing again in their upcoming action epic Masterminds.

Starring Owen Wilson, Zach Galifinakis, Kristen Wiig and Jason Sudeikis it’s your classic heist comedy. It has director Jared Hess at the helm (Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre, Don Verdean) but don’t let that put you off. The trailer brings an inordinate amount of lols for such a generic premise…and a film with Owen Wilson in it…

The film is based on an actual heist that took place in the late 90s. Dubbed The Loomis Fargo Robbery or ‘The Hillbilly Heist’, the North Carolina robbery was the second biggest cash theft on US soil at the time. FUN FACT: one of the perpetrators David Ghantt (played by Galifanakis) was actually on set for a lot of the filming. Awakrd, much? Wiig told Yahoo Movies “He definitely has a sense of humour about himself.”

My Galifinakis has come a long way from that ol’ Fiona Apple film clip, hasn’t he?

 Masterminds is released in Australian cinemas via Roadshow on September 3.