Mark Twain’s eternal boys, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, ride again as modern 30-something misfits in Adam and Aaron Nee’s cheery heist caper for literary nerds.

Tom (Adam Nee) is an unlikely cop, and childhood pal Huck (Kyle Gallner) is an ex-con. With solid supporting players who include Hannibal Buress, the friends plot an ill-fated heist. The updates are clever, such as morphing Injun Joe (Stephen Lang) into a white dude who can add cultural appropriation to his rap sheet.

The Nees lean toward the rat-a-tat comedy of “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” presumably knowing they can’t match the profundity of “Huckleberry Finn.” (Who could?) In addition to Twain, the directors clearly worship the Coens, specifically “Raising Arizona.” And that’s OK.