There’s a potentially entertaining movie buried somewhere inside How to Rob a Bank. Unfortunately, it’s buried under a mountain of conflicting tones, outdated internet humor, half-baked social commentary and an FBI investigation that seems to belong to an entirely different movie.
Directed by David Leitch, the film follows a group of criminals and social warriors who rob banks, record their exploits and upload the videos online. In doing so, they turn their crimes into a sort of Robin Hood-inspired social media meme stock. Think Heat, but for Gen Alpha. Naturally, the FBI isn’t particularly thrilled, and a veteran agent played by John C. Reilly teams up with a quirky hacker played by Zoë Kravitz to track them down. This is all coming from the same guy who directed Bullet Train and The Fall Guy, both of which I think are fantastic films.
On paper, there should be plenty here to make for a fun, fast-paced crime comedy. Occasionally, that’s exactly what the movie delivers. The cast is likable, the premise has some potential, and there are moments of genuinely entertaining heist antics. Nicholas Hoult, Anna Sawai and Pete Davidson make up the criminal crew, although the film doesn’t give them nearly enough personality to make their cause particularly compelling.
The bigger problem is that How to Rob a Bank seems to pull the audience in three different directions at once. First, we’re dragged along by a goofy social media comedy, complete with flashy graphics and online activism. Then the movie constantly stops to hammer us over the head with serious drama about financial inequality, corporate greed and people pushed to desperation. Finally, there’s an FBI procedural comedy featuring Reilly and Kravitz investigating the robberies. The humor is all over the place, too. Some jokes fall flat, while others are so dry I’m left wondering if comedy can be moist. None of these elements is particularly terrible on its own, but together they make for one incredibly uneven experience.
The social media stuff is especially painful. The filmmakers seem to have taken their understanding of internet culture from the worlds of Jake Paul and MrBeast, using meme-heavy, manufactured drama as their inspiration. Watching these criminals package their bank robberies as instructional videos doesn’t feel like a modern viral phenomenon. It’s just cringey. The film desperately wants us to take its commentary on capitalism and corporate greed seriously, despite repeatedly undercutting itself with cartoonish antics and painfully obvious messaging.
Pete Davidson is probably the biggest surprise of How to Rob a Bank and, honestly, the one part of the movie I consistently enjoyed. His character has a scruffy, unpredictable charm that feels much more natural than the film’s attempts at quirky humor and social commentary. Davidson brings an entertaining energy to the role, making even his brief moments onscreen more interesting than much of what surrounds him. In fact, I found myself wishing the movie had focused more on his character. There’s enough personality there to build a much more compelling story, and a film centered around his particular brand of chaotic desperation might have made for a far more entertaining crime comedy. Instead, he’s stuck playing second fiddle in a movie that seems far more interested in making a statement than developing its most enjoyable character.
Ultimately, How to Rob a Bank isn’t completely without entertainment value. Leitch knows how to stage action, the cast is capable, and there’s enough going on to keep things moving. But the constant tonal whiplash makes it difficult to become invested in anything happening onscreen. Just when the movie starts having fun, it wants to deliver a lecture. Just when the drama starts building, we’re back to goofy internet videos. And just when the FBI investigation gets interesting, the movie remembers it has another bank robbery to show us. It’s occasionally fun, occasionally frustrating and consistently unsure of what kind of movie it wants to be. I’ll give Leitch credit for trying, but this heist flick doesn’t quite pay off.
