How to Rob a Bank is the kind of movie in which Radiohead’s “Karma Police” makes its appearance on the soundtrack the very minute a character seems to be getting his just deserts, courtesy of local law enforcement. It’s hardly a subtle film, in other words, which might be fine if screenwriter Mark Bianculli and director David Leitch had bothered to explore any of the nuances in its story of Robin Hood-type vigilantes whose form of justice involves taking back for the people what the country’s broken financial system has stolen from them. The first problem is that this is an entirely personal mission for the members of this gang, and the second is that they’re content creators.
Considering that second point, it should come as no surprise that, until a certain point at the very end, the major concern for the hosts and operators of a YouTube channel that shares the movie’s title is that they provide content to a ravenous fan base (their official slogan is even a wolf with the word next to them, all in caps: “HUNGRY?”). Everybody wants fans, of course, but in a world when so much else, which is allegedly the most important thing to them, is practically on fire, this concern about a following sort of seems like small beer in comparison. That might explain the third act, which finally acknowledges the humanity underneath this overtly formulaic action-comedy-cum-thriller.
The main players here are the group of self-proclaimed deliverers of economic justice, led by Ryan (Nicholas Hoult) and also consisting of his wife Emi (Anna Sawai), tech-whiz Hugo (Rhenzy Feliz) and military veteran Vince (Pete Davidson), the last of whom has a wife and son to provide for at home. Their targets are the banks within a few-miles radius of train tracks that act as their base of operation, and the stated purpose is to make the point that robbing banks, as the ultimate form of passive income, is a surer thing, given how allegedly easy it is to do, than just about any job—union or otherwise—that could come along. It’s all rigged, which is a pretty good point, of course, and also a pretty good reason to sympathize with these people solely on that basis.
The movie in which they’ve found themselves, though, is basically one long series of montages in which we get to see the preparation for and execution of those heists—although we don’t even get to see those as often as we get to see their preparation for and publication of the videos about them. The idea is that this whole thing is a revolution and a way of placing under the spotlight some of the predatory and vampiric activities of these banks (Christian Slater makes a glorified cameo as the president of a particularly important one, though we don’t learn why until it’s presented as a twist to dubious effect in the final act). It’s mostly an excuse for the movie to have a devil-may-care attitude about everything until it—along with the characters—needs to grow up.
The other half of the plot stars John C. Reilly—quite good under the circumstances—as FBI agent John West, who has been tasked with tracking down the group and arresting its members. To do so, he employs the help of convicted hacker Reagan (Zoe Kravitz), serving a sentence of house arrest that West might be able to make disappear under the conditions of the agreement. She built a stalking app to spy on an ex-boyfriend and tags along so that the characters can explain stuff to each other.
As stated before, the film’s stakes eventually narrow from a generic cautionary tale to a thriller in which these characters must fight for something they currently do not have and desperately need. Some of these are genuinely affecting, such as the thread following Davidson’s Vince, whose troubles extend beyond his home life, and the revelation about why Ryan and Emi are doing what they’re doing. It all ultimately means not much more than a personal vendetta that results in a series of car chases and some standoffs, leading to a coda that weirdly teases a sequel unlikely ever to come.
Leitch directs the film with an appreciable energy that befits the type of action movie this could have been, if it were several degrees more surprising or thematically probing. It seems unlikely that a big-screen indictment of the broken and corrupt financial system could wind up feeling as disposable as this, but How to Rob a Bank consistently subverts our expectations of it by never once subverting anything else in its storytelling.
Rating: ** (out of ****)
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