Social commentary is not what David Leitch was put on Earth to do. That’s what I take away from his latest movie, How to Rob a Bank. The stuntman-turned-director is far better when he’s spinning out great action sequences like the one-take stairway fight in Atomic Blonde or the karaoke car chase in The Fall Guy. His current action-thriller aims to be another “eat the rich” satire, and it left my appetite distinctly unwhetted.
The main characters are a group of armed robbers from Pittsburgh who hold up small banks between Cleveland and Philadelphia. They’re brazen enough to film their crimes and post the footage on various social-media platforms under the handle of How to Rob a Bank. For months, law enforcement has failed to identify them: a husband and wife (Nicholas Hoult and Anna Sawai), his Air Force comrade from Afghanistan (Pete Davidson), and a computer hacker (Rhenzy Feliz). They have almost a million followers, in large part because they pass most of their stolen cash to food banks and day-care centers. They also post an entire video telling their followers not to hurt cops or security guards, who are being screwed over by the system like everyone else.
It would be enlightening to see how a crew like this manages to stay out of the law’s clutches even as viewers start imitating their crimes in Texas and Florida. Unfortunately, screenwriter Mark Bianculli isn’t all that invested in making a convincing plot. While the videos posted by How to Rob a Bank are credibly junky in their aesthetic, the only time Leitch really generates tension from the group’s heists is when their attempted armored truck holdup is interrupted by a passing off-duty cop who tries to be a hero. Hell or High Water came out at a better time, but even so, it did everything this movie does, and did it smarter.
The movie knows that Americans are angry at the system, but not which part they’re angry at or why. The electorate isn’t mad at the banks — not even the ones that make predatory loans like the fictitious one that How to Rob a Bank is targeting — but rather at the billionaires who want to build data centers on your block and buy up politicians to cover up their crimes. That’s what the recent midterm elections were all about, and it’s why this movie that so wants to be au courant instead feels behind the curve. It’d have been more entertaining if the thieves are stealing cryptocurrency from AI moguls who are rigging America’s economy.
On a more grounded level, the movie is unbalanced. John C. Reilly brings his proletarian likability to the role of the FBI agent who’s pursuing the gang and enlists the help of a former Carnegie Mellon comp sci professor (Zoë Kravitz) who’s under house arrest for inventing software that tracks anyone’s current whereabouts from their social-media posts. Despite the script’s attempts at making the robbers sympathetic, it’s way more fun hanging out with these two as they banter about Primanti Bros. sandwiches and the agent’s wood-paneled 1991 Jeep Wagoneer, which he’s very fussy about maintaining. The filmmakers seem to not know what they have, because they sideline these characters for overly long stretches. You really sense that the members of How to Rob a Bank would disapprove of the poor conception of the movie that they’re in.
How to Rob a Bank
Starring Nicholas Hoult and John C. Reilly. Directed by David Leitch. Written by Mark Bianculli. Rated R.
