HOW TO ROB A BANK

How to Rob a Bank delivers an entertaining tale of corporate greed, social justice and bank robberies for the TikTok generation championed by the performances of Nicholas Hoult, Anna Sawai, Zoë Kravitz and John C. Reilly and David Leitch’s talented action oriented direction that more than compensates for the limited view taken by the film’s screenplay.

When it comes to modern action films, there is one director synonymous with the genre: David Leitch. Starting off his career as a stunt man and evolving into a director being responsible for action films like John Wick and Atomic Blonde, his career behind the camera has found great success blending great practical stunt work action films with a great sense of comedy with hits like Deadpool 2 and The Fall Guy. It is a resume that makes Leitch the perfect choice for a modern Robin Hood-esque bank heist thriller rooted in social media, and with the all-star cast of Nicholas Hoult, Anna Sawai, Zoë Kravitz and John C. Reilly he assembles, How to Rob a Bank allows Leitch to play to his strengths as a director. Packed with entertaining heist sequences and commendable performances, Leitch takes audiences on a captivating thrill ride from start to finish that moves quickly even if the screenplay could use some fine tuning.

Steal from the rich, give to the poor, it's a tale as old as time itself dating back to the legend of Robin Hood, and one that has been told time and time again on screen. While updated for a modern generation, one that is addicted to viral TikTok reels and YouTube channels, screenwriter Mark Bianculli uses this tried and proven idea at the centre of his screenplay for How to Rob a Bank, the latest film in the long line of entertaining heist thrillers. It’s not a ground breaking central idea for the bank heist thriller as these films often revolve around such noble ideals and revenge driven stories, which this story plays to both, as Bianculli poses the question to the audience of who is robbing who, but it's more than enough of a base to let the action and heists unfold in an entertaining manner.

To start, Bianculli is focused on showcasing the online personas of the robbers, their hyperactive video editing style and heists while wearing the animal face masks, which creates an energetic buzz to the film’s fast pace. Through Kravitz’s Reagan and Reilly’s Agent West, Bianculli begins his morality discussion around who is robbing who is introduced, rooted in ideas about our current society’s operation and socio-economic factors and who the system best serves. Paired with the early heist sequences, the film briskly moves through its first half, even if the fact that the FBI have next to nothing on these robbers who are posting their criminal exploits to the masses and have to turn to a felon for help is the most nonsensical notion ever. Within the context of a fictional heist thriller it is easy to suspend disbelief for entertainment’s sake, however, what is harder to ignore is the lack of character development for the robbers in the first half. Bianculli is more focused on Reagan and Agent West trying to ascertain information about the criminals' identities, revealing more about the robbers in real time to the audience with small teases of their true motives, which has the unfortunate narrative side effect of stalling the audience’s empathy for the robbers. They remain merely young punks, obsessed with social media views and reach (which they talk about more frequently than the actual dollar value they are stealing), with no concrete motivation and no true sense of character, making it hard for these Robin Hood style individuals to become the rogue heroes the audience is meant to root for.

At the halfway mark, when the film shifts its focus to the robbers themselves, their back stories are slowly revealed and Bianculli begins to build the foundation for the audience’s emotional attachment to them. Even though it is quickly done through clichés of the heist genre, the familiar beats alongside a talented lead cast are enough to both invest viewers in the robbers’ noble cause and move the film towards its third act “grand finale heist”. That grand finale heist itself remains grounded in the emotion of Ryan’s crusade as the lead bank robber, providing a satisfying conclusion to the film’s story concurrently with the clashing of opinions on “what is just” versus “what is lawful”, and while it is all a little too cleanly tied up with a bow, its done in an entertaining way that is hard to be disappointed by.

With a talented lead cast, the simplicities of Bianculli’s screenplay are easy to look past. Hoult and Sawai are both incredibly talented actors in their own right, and when paired together as the two main robbers, they easily bring the required emotion to sell their characters’ motivations and create resonance to the story’s underlying emotional thread with performances that are equally charismatic and vulnerable. It’s a shame that the film doesn’t put their talents to better use, as one could only imagine if Hoult and Sawai were given more material to work with together the palpable romance they could have created, but the small teases of their potential that does cut through this edit works wonders for the film. Though, it is the unlikely pairing of Kravitz and Reilly that is the film’s secret weapon. Becoming a sure fire comedic pairing, Kravitz and Reilly’s playful banter creates some of the film’s most entertaining moments that brings a joy to the film every time they share the screen together, leaning into the comedic stylings that have often defined Leitch's directorial efforts. At the same time, the more dramatic and philosophical moments between Kravitz and Reilly carries enough intellectual merit to build the story’s central question to the audience, even if the dialogue they recite in these conversations is heavily simplified to make sure the audience never for a second misses the fairly obvious social commentary of Bianculli’s writing.

Given Leitch’s track record as a director and his origins as a stunt man, it comes as no surprise that the heist sequences in How to Rob a Bank are some of the film’s most noteworthy moments. Full of exquisite practical stunt work from flipping cars, hand to hand combat with bank security guards, and coordination of mobs of followers, Leitch orchestrates each set piece with a precision and propulsive energy with minimal CGI to energize the film and calls back to heist films like Point Break and The Fast and the Furious in terms of the action. The final heist sequence is where Leitch unleashes it all, orchestrating stunts, multiple character points of view and gripping tension with a flawless execution that allows the Bianculli’s screenplay to reach its exciting conclusion and deliver on its social commentary. It's within these sequences where Leitch captures the excitement of the heist thriller with an unapologetic sense of fun and delivers sublime popcorn entertainment that even though it does not measure up to the most memorable heist films ever, never for a second fails to deliver pure enjoyment from start to finish.

Even as it relies on tired clichés of the heist genre and simplistic social commentary that does not create the more insightful conversation Mark Bianculli’s screenplay strives for, David Leitch infuses How to Rob a Bank with an infectious energy that delivers a true crowd pleasing film. While focused on posing the question of who is morally just in this story: the law man tracking down the criminals who are breaking the law to help maintain civil order; or the criminals taken advantage of by the system who are out to right society’s wrongs; the film’s talented lead cast all elevate Mark Bianculli’s writing and David Leitch’s skilled direction of the heist sequences allows How to Rob a Bank to deliver on its fun promise. Full of exciting set pieces and the gleeful pairing of Zoë Kravitz and John C. Reilly who light up the screen every second they are on it; David Leitch orchestrates true big screen fun from start to finish in How to Rob a Bank that allows the film to overcome its simplistic writing but never truly breaks free of the limitations of Mark Bianculli’s writing at the same time.