How to Rob a Bank Film Review: Who Robs Who?

How to Rob a Bank blends lighthearted action with social consciousness, and the result is somewhat messy but occasionally clever and consistently engaging.

Helping Ryan are his fellow furry-costumed crooks including his lover Emi (Anna Sawai, of F9) and Afghanistan war veteran Vince (Pete Davidson, of The Home). Their crimes put them in the crosshairs of FBI agent John West, played by John C. Reilly. (My headcanon is that he’s the cop from Magnolia who’s now moved up in the world.) He turns to prosecuted software engineer Reagan Gardner (Zoë Kravitz, of Caught Stealing), who agrees to help track the robbers in exchange for her charges being dropped.

Most of the film’s early stretch consists largely of the fun, somewhat irreverent rushes of action and snappy character banter that you’d expect from director David Leitch at this point, except now with a hearty dose of – gasp! – commentary. Most of which comes from the robbers and their “content,” which is clearly meant to be over-the-top and goofy while still giving their viewers – and us in the theater – their surface-level motivations for what they do and why the world is so screwed by the powers that be.

Is it a stretch to buy that such a high-profile group would remain uncaught for this long, or that YouTube wouldn’t instantly delete videos of real-world crimes being used for entertainment? Absolutely. Is it a stretch to buy that such cringey, flashy YouTube slop would be well received by even a decent chunk of internet users? … Actually, not really. Regardless, you need to suspend your disbelief pretty quickly for How to Rob a Bank to work at all, and I can overcome that hurdle thanks to the entertainment value of the performances, writing, and style.

Jonathan Sela has been Leitch’s go-to cinematographer from the start, and their perfect match continues with very fluid camerawork that rarely gets very showy but keeps every frame of either action or simple dialogue stimulating. Compared to the overproduced aesthetic of their last film, The Fall Guy, How to Rob a Bank looks more grounded especially during the stunts or sequences of mounting tension, even as we follow a simple maneuver up an apartment building in one clean shot.

The bank robbers themselves don’t get a ton of material to flesh them out for a good while, other than a couple of obligatory scenes that either show their bonds with each other or a bit of their domestic life that spurs them on. At first, we actually have a better understanding of Gardner and Agent West as they become used to working together and share their often-clashing opinions on the situation, and one of the film’s highlights is seeing their relationship evolve from begrudging partners to genuine mutual fondness.

A shame, then, that Gardner herself is an almost completely pointless inclusion. She offers a crucial means of catching the criminals, but once that means is in the FBI’s hands, she’s left hanging with nothing important to do with no direct relevance to anything else. Unless you count the presence of her adorable guinea pig as important, which you obviously should. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the later we go into the film, the more we come to understand the likes of Ryan, Emi, and Vince on a bit of a deeper level.

How to Rob a Bank eventually transitions from a fun affair to something noticeably more serious when it peels back the layers of these criminals. They present themselves as go-getter punks showing the man how it’s done in the name of revolution, but there are very personal, tragic stakes that drive them to keep going. It’s almost like the film intentionally starts us in the perspective of their viewers so it could then pull the rug out and take us behind the scenes. And in doing so, it illustrates the darker, more selfish side that comes with their “fight the power” mentality.

Social media is filled with buzzwords, statistics, and agendas that rile up crowds to join them. And more often than not, it comes with manipulation that Ryan and his gang are just as guilty of as the institutions they despise, hiding behind animal costumes that they even sell to their followers. (Still scarier than the Five Nights at Freddy’s animatronics.) And as Ryan nears his grand endgame, getting closer to the roots of his pain, you see the darkness that completely strips away whatever renegade rootability he initially had, all while his audience remains oblivious and gets swept up in the madness. 

At the same time, you understand where he’s coming from and can almost side with him. No sane person is going to think that robbing banks and terrorizing people is a good idea. For the sake of not getting this website shut down by the government, I must make that very clear. But sympathies can still exist for those who do wrong, and scathing criticisms must still apply to the systems that brought them to where they are. How to Rob a Bank sets itself up to where you can at the very least understand where every side is coming from in a passionate, if not complex, way.

Unfortunately, just as it’s on the verge of a slam dunk, How to Rob a Bank drops the ball at the last minute like me in 6th grade gym class. The resolution builds up a bittersweet sendoff, retaining the murkier sentiments that had taken the place of the beginning portion’s fist-pumping thrills. It seems ready to leave you there, walking out with the kinds of questions a movie with so much blunt commentary should be asking. 

But at the very last possible chance, it rips away all notions of consequence and reverts back to its tongue-in-cheek origins in a manner that compromises the entire film’s messaging. Not enough to ruin everything, but enough to add an asterisk, not to mention as the last impression you have before and during the credits. So, the film is in a weird spot where 95% of the experience is really enjoyable, but the other 5% makes me second-guess the rest, which is where I can see a lot of the film’s lackluster reception coming from. 

How to Rob a Bank doesn’t wholly commit to being either a total action romp or a socially conscious meditation, and it doesn’t combine the two as effectively as, say, One Battle After Another. But it does the job fairly well and provides enough impressive thrills, likeability, and food for thought to overcome some gaping holes and extraneous pieces. I really do admire how well it pulls back the curtain of what starts as a more lighthearted experience. Even if it can’t help but return the curtain to its original position. 

How to Rob a Bank is now available to watch in US theaters, in UK & Irish cinemas and globally in theatres.