Director: David Leitch
Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Zoë Kravitz, Anna Sawai, Rhenzy Feliz, Pete Davidson, John C. Reilly
Screenplay: Mark Bianculli
122 mins. Rated R for language, some violence, and brief drug use.

I’m always excited for a new David Leitch (Bullet Train) film. The stunt performer-turned-director has crafted some of the most exciting and enjoyably goofy actioners of the past decade, so when I learned he was making How to Rob a Bank, an “EAT THE RICH” style Robin Hood tale for the current generation, my interest had piqued, and the finished product’s not bad, but it isn’t all that good either, relying too much on Stormtrooper Syndrome action and some major gaps in logic that, sadly, kept taking me out of the immersion.

Content is king, and Ryan (Nicholas Hoult, Superman) has a fascinating YouTube channel delivering up that sweet content in the form of tutorials and live-streams of actual bank robberies committed by him and his team. Together, this crew has taken the internet by storm and angered more than a few at the very top of the financial food chain. As they work toward their mission of destabilizing the system and starting a movement, they are being hunted by Agent West (John C. Reilly, The Lobster) of the FBI and a hacker named Reagan (Zoë Kravitz, The Batman) who had previously developed a system capable of catching them once and for all.

Leitch works well with lovable losers like Wade Wilson/Deadpool, Brad Pitt’s Ladybug from Bullet Chain, and Ryan Gosling’s Colt Seavers from The Fall Guy. In How to Rob a Bank, these heroic criminal protagonists are too cool for school, and they just feel like they have no weaknesses, nothing stopping them, and the occasional time that the FBI gains the upper hand, I rarely felt any real tension or concern. The cops are inept and always one step behind, and the this even extends to the logic gaps of the film, including the crew’s own unwillingness to follow their own rules, most notably the masked identities. From an early point of the movie, Ryan’s Wolf informs his viewers to always MASK UP in order to keep your identity a secret. Then, they spend a large chunk of the film not wearing masks during car chases or shootouts, when they’d be most likely captured on video. This is most egregious with Anna Sawai (F9), who plays Ryan’s partner Emi, and strolls around in public wearing mostly a mouth covering; I feel like matching her to the crime would be a lot easier than the others.

There’s an overreliance on plot conveniences that allow the heroes to always stay ahead of the FBI, which causes a lot of the film’s deeper themes to flounder which is unfortunate because 2026 feels, perhaps more than any other year, like the year of “EAT THE RICH” cinema, but How to Rob a Bank spends so much narrative time preaching a lot at the audience, full of cotton candy imagery but mostly telling us what we already know, and it feels hollow coming from capitalist conglomerate Amazon, which buys up and consumes everything in its path. I have to give them credit for allowing this movie to exist, but there’s a frustration in making it look so easy to take down the big bad guys and how much the script feels the need for spoon-feeding its audience.

Still, there are exciting scenes, and the performers are all fun to watch. I hadn’t placed “Nicholas Hoult as a super-hot action hero bank robber” on my 2026 BINGO card, but I’m here for it, and he has the gravitas to give Ryan a bit more to play with. It’s lovely to see Anna Sawai get a larger role onscreen, even if she’s underutilized. Pete Davidson (Bodies Bodies Bodies) is perhaps the standout of the film with a relatively meaty character to work with a lot more emotional depth than the actor’s usually saddled with. John C. Reilly makes the most of his relatively wooden character who even gets the “5 years away from retirement” FBI agent cliche. Leitch knows how to direct action, and the set pieces use these characters well, even if the film is missing some of the big and bombastic sequences that he’s recently become known for.

How to Rob a Bank is wish fulfillment at its most “okay.” It has plenty of spirit and the cast liven things up, but it’s also just too familiar, too simple, and breaks its own rules & immersion in a frustrating. I didn’t hate the experience, but I kept questioning the film’s own structure logic because I couldn’t suspend the amount of disbelief necessary for a truly entertaining experience. Far from the worst of the year’s actioners, but far from the best, How to Rob a Bank is more disappointing (due to the caliber of cast and crew) than outright bad, but I can’t honestly recommend it in this year of “EAT THE RICH” Robin Hood-esque tales.

2½/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

• For more David Leitch: Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, Fast & Furious presents Hobbs & Shaw, The Fall Guy