Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: David Leitch
Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Zoë Kravitz, Anna Sawai, Rhenzy Feliz, Christian Slater, Pete Davidson, John C. Reilly
The latest movie title to ruin your search history is David Leitch's How to Rob a Bank. Any potential robbers seeking advice will be left short however, as the best tip this film's anti-heroes can offer is "don't get shot." As a detailed look into the mechanics of pulling off a heist, Rififi it ain't.
Those anti-heroes (or straight up heroes or villains depending on your politics) are a bunch of influencers who feel wronged by the system and are now striking back not only by robbing banks but teaching everyone else how to carry out such crimes through their elaborate YouTube videos (YouTube won't even let you upload a Beatles reaction video, so I've no idea how they manage to get these vids online).
How to Rob a Bank's politics can be reduced to "billionaires are bad," a get-out clause that allows its protagonists to behave like assholes. Regardless of their motives, it's impossible to support these edgelords once you see them sticking machine guns in the faces of innocent members of the public. The movie wants us to think they've come from deprived backgrounds, but they're all coded like trustafarians. As the robbers, Nicholas Hoult, Anna Sawai and Pete Davidson sorely lack the level of charisma required to get us on board with their criminal antics.
Far more engaging are John C. Reilly and Zoe Kravitz as the grizzled FBI agent and hipster hacker on their tail. There isn't a single believable character in this movie, but Reilly and Kravitz at least seem to understand that they're acting in a knuckle-headed action movie, unlike Hoult and co., who insist on playing this immature nonsense with a straight face.
Despite being set in the present, How to Rob a Bank has a dated aesthetic reminiscent of simple-minded '90s youth thrillers like Hackers and Shopping. The YouTube videos made by Hoult and his buddies resemble 2000s kids TV, with the editing rhythms of an Ali G short. Rather than gaining millions of young followers, you imagine they would inspire cringe among today's kids. Known for cartoonish action flicks like Atomic Blonde, Hobbs & Shaw and Bullet Train, Leitch is a terrible fit for a movie that wants us to feel sympathy for downtrodden heroes rising up against their oppressors. How to Rob a Bank fumbles the ball so badly you'll end up rooting for the banks.
How to Rob a Bank is in UK/ROI cinemas from November 13th.
