How To Rob A Bank Review
The latest film from David Leitch, How to Rob A Bank, has dropped in theaters. A heist movie that involves modern-day social media with a stacked cast with Nicholas Hoult, Zoë Kravitz, John C. Reilly, and Pete Davidson. How is this movie? Is it any good? Let’s talk about it!
The Review
My excitement for this movie has been a little bit scattered, because going into 2026, this was actually one of my most anticipated movies of the year. I really like David Leitch and a lot of his movies; The Fall Guy was one of my favorite movies of 2024. Then we got the trailers for the movie, and while the trailers weren’t bad, they were pretty underwhelming, and my excitement for the movie did drop. Well, I was able to see the movie last night, and overall I thought the movie was fine. Is it one of the best movies of 2026? No. But it’s also not going to be one of the worst movies of 2026. It’s going to be a 2026 that’s viewed as mid; it’s the definition of mediocre. Where there’s a lot of talent in front of and behind the camera, there’s clearly money being thrown at the screen. But it’s just so bland, and I didn’t find it fun enough to make it good. My review for this movie is going to be a little bit different because I don’t have too much to say about the movie. As I talk about it, it’s going to sound like I hated the movie. To be clear, I did not hate the movie. It’s just a very mediocre and frustrating movie.
Right out of the gate, there’s an interesting idea in here of robbers using social media to teach their audience how to rob banks and fight back against the system. Given the current state of social media and how it’s dominated culture, I think doing a heist movie like this makes sense. Even what it’s talking about with its social commentary feels very relevant today. It’s essentially a modern-day Robin Hood story, with these thieves giving back to the less fortunate. Some elements will remind you of the Now You See Me movies. There’s an interesting idea in here with some fun inspirations, but the movie as a whole didn’t work for me. Part of the problem with the movie is that, with the messaging, it can get a bit too heavy-handed at points. The movie lectures the audience multiple points in the movie about the message. Whether that’s our main thief characters or John C. Reilly as this FBI agent trying to stop them. At multiple points in the movie, it’s telling the audience what the movie is about, without showing the audience what the movie is about. What’s frustrating about that is that the movie doesn’t go deep with this idea. It explores this idea of the rich robbing the poor and less fortunate, so they want to fight back against the system and rob the rich. That’s as deep as it goes; the movie thinks that it’s saying something about current society and the different social class dynamics, but it feels surface-level. It’s a frustrating package, because the movie is constantly lecturing you and reminding you of what the movie is about and what it’s trying to say, but it doesn’t do anything interesting with it.
Beyond that, the movie has some serious tone issues. If you’ve seen the trailers, it’s heavily marketed as being high-energy, with lots of fun, action, and jokes. While there are certainly elements of that in this movie, the movie is also a lot darker and more emotional than the trailers teased. This is most prevalent in the third act, where it takes this big swing in tone and pretty much abandons the tone, vibe, and style of the first half. The first half is very stylized and high-energy, and about halfway through the movie, all of that gets abandoned, and it feels like an entirely different movie. All of the social media aspects and the live streams aren’t present in the movie at all. It gets more character-focused, and that’s when you start to learn the characters’ backstories and motivations that tie into the motivations of the third act. The motivations established get pretty dark. In particular, with Pete Davidson’s character and what’s revealed about him, it’s so dark and kind of depressing what his motivations are and why he’s robbing banks. As I said earlier, his motivations feel like they’re from an entirely different movie. Since the movie can get pretty dark with the motivations the character works from, it sucks a lot of the fun out of the movie. I don’t know if there were disagreements between David Leitch and the studio, and Leitch wanted to do a more serious film, but the studio wanted it to be more fun. I don’t know what happened, but the switch in tone from the first half to the second half is pretty jarring.
With that said, was I bored with the movie? No. The movie does move at a nice quick pace, the characters are lively and there’s plenty of jokes and entertainment to be had that the 2-hour runtime didn’t drag for me, it moved at a nice pace. It’s far from being one of the worst movies of the year, but it’s certainly one of the most mediocre movies of the year. I think part of the frustration with this movie is that it went to theaters. If this were free on Prime Video tomorrow and I watched it, I think my experience with the movie would be very different, and I think people as a whole would enjoy this movie. Would I say you should go watch this movie in theaters? Probably not. If you’re bored on a Friday night and this is on Prime Video, then watch it, and it’ll kill two hours of your life, and you won’t feel like you’re regretting it. I wanted to like this movie; I like this genre, the director, and the cast, but it’s going to be one of 2026’s most disappointing movies.
The Score: 7.8/10 (C+)
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