How To Rob a Bank: Do Not Deposit Your Movie Money Here

By Liz Braun

Rating: B

How To Rob a Bank is not the first movie to make folk heroes out of bank robbers, but it’s safe to say this ain’t no Dog Day Afternoon.

David Leitch’s heist film has a great cast and an energetic aura, but the movie loses its way within the first 30 minutes. There are issues with tone — things ping awkwardly from comedy to tragedy to rousing (or not) social commentary — and with message. How To Rob a Bank looks as if it has something to say, but it doesn’t.

The story seems promising. A group of the downtrodden and disillusioned in American society band together: a combat veteran (Pete Davidson) who returns to a country that has no place for him; a grieving couple (Nicholas Hoult, Anna Sawai) destroyed by for-profit medicine and unscrupulous banks; a young Latin American man (Rhenzy Feliz) trying to keep his family afloat against all racial and socio-economic odds.

These fledgling revolutionaries have organized themselves into a successful crew of bank robbers. They post frenetic footage of their own heists after each robbery and have a galvanizing presence on social media that has won them hundreds of thousands of followers.

They even offer amusing dos and don’ts of the trade, planning tips, timing details and other insider bits that make bank robbing look attractive and lucrative. And they have statistics to back up their claims. For example, nine out of 10 bank robberies are successful, while more mainstream routes to wealth are blocked by insurmountable societal odds.

Their TikTok TED talks address bank guards and tellers, asking why any of them would risk his or her life to protect the establishment’s money.

Up the worker!

The robbers — they are known as the Wolfpack and are led by Hoult’s character — have 14 major robberies under their belts and viral videos to prove it. The care they take in planning and execution means the police have no clues or leads and nothing that might lead to an arrest.

Enter John C. Reilly as an FBI agent determined to bring down the Wolfpack, and Zoë Kravitz as the tech wizard who reluctantly works with him.

Their investigation suggests that the bank robbers might be after something other than money. The bank robbers might be trying to make a statement. Their social media presence has a point the law will soon discover…

For all the hyper-showy visuals, How To Rob a Bank is generally slow and feels self-indulgent at two hours long. The storytelling is of the vaguely insulting variety: an hour is spent showing how meticulous and skilled the bank robbers are, and then the plot turns on exactly the kind of stupid mistake that a viewer has just been shown these bank robbers would never make. Come on, people.

How To Rob a Bank is full of eminently watchable actors doing good work. There are some inspired visual moments. Overall, however, this is a meandering thing that squanders its own cast and good intentions.

How To Rob a Bank. Directed by David Leitch, written by Mark Bianculli. Starring Nicholas Hoult, Zoë Kravitz, Anna Sawai, Pete Davidson, Rhenzy Feliz, and John C. Reilly. In theatres November 13.