David Leitch's 'How to Rob a Bank' Steals Laughs, Not Change

By Daniel Okafor

Amazon MGM Studios will release David Leitch's "How to Rob a Bank" in theaters on Friday, November 13. The film stars Nicolas Hoult as a Pittsburgh bank robber who films his crimes and posts them to YouTube. Yes, the studio founded by Jeff Bezos made it. No, the irony is not lost on anyone.

The review, published alongside the announcement, calls the film "poppy and frenetic" and notes that it wouldn't dare target massive corporations that widen the wealth gap. Instead, it's "very specifically a film about how banks are bad and should be fucked with," an opinion the review suggests the founder of Amazon might share with the average ticket-buyer.

What is the film actually about?

Ryan (Hoult) isn't trying to get rich or spark a revolution. He and his four-person crew want what previous generations got as part of the American contract: the chance to support a family. Their method is old-fashioned robbery, wearing giant animal masks, knocking off every bank in Pittsburgh — but the cash matters less than the content. The crew cuts each job into splashy YouTube tutorials titled "Lowkey Best Heist Ever," posted by Hugo (Rhenzy Feliz).

"You know what's more powerful than a gun?" Ryan says. "An audience."

Hoult, per the review, channels a smidgeon of the destructive intensity that made him terrifying in "The Order." That's enough to keep the film moving even when it spins its wheels.

Who else is in it?

The supporting cast is stacked, and partly wasted:

• Pete Davidson plays Vince, an Iraq War vet and gun expert who has learned that "a country you fight for may not fight for you."
• Anna Sawai plays Emi, the getaway driver, described as "wildly underused."
• John C. Reilly plays the Al Pacino role in what the review calls an eat-the-rich Gen-Z "Heat," barking lines like "Put some fucking pepper on it!" at subordinates.
• Zoë Kravitz plays a grungy hacker roped into the case in exchange for her freedom.

The review's sharpest criticism lands on structure. The Reilly-Kravitz track "never meaningfully overlaps with the main plot," and Kravitz never interacts with the Hoult side of things. For a film full of hashtag agitprop, that's "an enormous self-own." Mark Bianculli's script also pulls the ripcord on its propulsive first half and settles into flimsiness, never explaining how the crew found each other.

Is it any good?

The verdict is warmer than the complaints suggest. The review praises the film's "smiling verve and some bone-crunching action," conceding there isn't enough physical violence to stack up against the rest of 87North Productions' catalog. Leitch, director of "Bullet Train," shoehorns in a few solid brawls anyway.

Pittsburgh gets a shout-out too: not since "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" has a studio movie gotten so much out of the city, with locations reflecting the story's collision between old world and new. The film resolves, the review says, as "more of a fairy tale than anything else — a heist movie full of talking animals, and one that hinges on YouTube as a modern form of spellcasting."

The broader argument is worth chewing on. At a time when internet activists like Hasan Piker occupy more cultural space than Marvel superheroes, selling the masses fanciful stories about downward wealth redistribution might be the billionaire class's best protection against the real thing. It's more fun than paying a proportional tax rate. Whether audiences buy the fantasy — and the film — we'll know on November 13.