David Leitch’s YouTube-era Robin Hood thriller is messy but timely, with a career-best Pete Davidson and a terrific Anna Sawai.
Every few years Hollywood makes a movie that catches the national mood almost by accident. How to Rob a Bank, David Leitch‘s slick, angry, occasionally messy heist thriller, is that kind of movie. It is a story about bank robbers who become folk heroes by filming their crimes and handing out the money, and it arrives at a moment when a lot of Americans would probably cheer them on. That timeliness gives the film a charge that its uneven script cannot always sustain, but it also makes it one of the most surprising studio releases of the year: a big, glossy, star-driven entertainment that is openly furious at the financial system.
Nicholas Hoult stars as Ryan, the leader of a Pittsburgh crew that robs banks in animal masks and posts the footage to YouTube under the handle HTRAB, complete with a catchphrase, slick editing and a following in the millions. Ryan, who wears a wolf mask and narrates the action with the confidence of a natural influencer, believes an audience is more powerful than a gun. His crew tosses cash to tellers and customers, donates larger sums to schools, churches and hospitals, and inspires a wave of copycat robberies across the country. To their fans, they are not criminals. They are Robin Hood with a ring light.
The setup is irresistible, and Leitch, the former stuntman behind Atomic Blonde, Bullet Train and The Fall Guy, stages the early heists with his trademark kinetic energy. The robberies are fast, funny and cleverly built around the crew’s online persona, with on-screen graphics, comment feeds and pop-up captions turning each job into a piece of viral content. Screenwriter Mark Bianculli is clearly having fun with the idea of crime as content, and the film nods directly to Point Break, swapping that movie’s presidential masks for wolves and foxes.
But the most interesting thing about How to Rob a Bank is that it does not stay a caper. Midway through, the film shifts gears into something much heavier, revealing the personal tragedies that drove each member of the crew to crime. Ryan and his partner Emi (Anna Sawai) are reeling from a loss tied to medical debt and predatory lending. Vince (Pete Davidson), an Afghanistan veteran, has been failed by the VA health system and is running out of time. Hugo (Rhenzy Feliz), the crew’s tech whiz, is desperate to support his family. These are not glamorous thieves. They are ordinary people pushed past the breaking point.
That turn gives the film real emotional weight, but it also exposes its biggest problem. Leitch and Bianculli never fully reconcile the two movies they are making. One is a slick, self-aware heist comedy full of flashy graphics and needle drops. The other is a sincere social drama about grief, debt and inequality. The tonal shift is jarring, and at times it feels like the film is switching channels rather than evolving. The early stretches, in particular, can tip into the hyperactive overload that made Bullet Train such an exhausting watch.
The cast does a lot to smooth over the seams. Hoult, who has quietly become one of the most versatile actors of his generation, is terrific as Ryan, charismatic enough to make you believe millions would follow him and wounded enough to make you understand why he cannot stop. He and Sawai, the Emmy-winning star of Shogun, have a sensual, lived-in chemistry that grounds the film’s emotional core. Sawai, in particular, brings a quiet ferocity to Emi, the crew’s strategist and getaway driver, and the film is noticeably better whenever she is on screen.
The real revelation is Davidson. Best known for his comedy, he gives a restrained, deeply affecting performance as Vince, a man fighting a system that abandoned him after he fought for it. His final scene is one of the most moving moments in any studio film this year, and it is easily his best dramatic work since The King of Staten Island. Feliz, who broke out in The Penguin, has less to do, but his warmth and energy make Hugo an instant favorite.
On the other side of the law, John C. Reilly plays John West, a weary FBI agent nearing retirement who refuses to let HTRAB be the case that defines his career. Reilly brings his usual rumpled humanity to the role, playing a cop who understands, perhaps a little too well, why these people are doing what they are doing. His scenes give the film a moral counterweight, and his growing respect for the crew adds a melancholy edge to the cat-and-mouse chase.
Zoe Kravitz is less well served. She plays Reagan, a brilliant Carnegie Mellon coding professor under house arrest for hacking, recruited by West to analyze the crew’s videos. Kravitz is wonderfully dry and funny in the role, and the character’s introduction, complete with a tracking program built to hunt down a deadbeat ex, is one of the film’s highlights. But the script seems to lose interest in her once the plot kicks into high gear, and by the climax she is reduced to watching from the sidelines. It feels like a missed opportunity to give the film a sharper, more ambivalent voice.
Christian Slater, meanwhile, has a ball as David Walton, the head of the predatory lender Vitality Trust and the crew’s ultimate target. He is a cartoonish villain, but in a movie this angry at the system, a cartoon villain might be the point.
The climactic heist, which brings thousands of HTRAB supporters into the streets around Vitality Trust’s headquarters, is staged with genuine scale and emotion. The image of a crowd rallying behind bank robbers inevitably recalls the Occupy Wall Street protests of 2011, and the film leans into that populist energy without apology. The plotting is chaotic and full of contrivances that will not survive close scrutiny, but Leitch keeps the momentum high, and the film saves a few clever surprises for a satisfying ending.
Leitch’s regular team deserves real credit. Jonathan Sela’s camerawork is muscular and fluid, Dom Lewis’ score keeps the pulse racing, and Elisabet Ronaldsdottir’s editing gives the action a punchy rhythm. The soundtrack is a highlight, moving from Fred Again’s pounding club tracks to the Hives, Jane’s Addiction and Billie Eilish. One scene, set to Radiohead’s “Karma Police,” is the most devastating use of a needle drop in a mainstream movie this year.
It is worth noting how unusual a film like this is. Studios rarely bankroll movies that portray the financial system as the villain and criminals as the heroes, let alone with a cast this starry and a budget this big. How to Rob a Bank is not subtle, and it is not always coherent, but it has something to say and the conviction to say it loudly. For a slick, mainstream action movie, that counts for a lot.
It also arrives at an interesting moment for its star. Hoult has spent the past few years stacking up impressive work, and he is reportedly among the actors who have screen tested to be the next James Bond, alongside Robert Pattinson, Callum Turner, Jack Lowden and Josh O’Connor. If Amazon’s casting team needed proof that he can lead a slick, star-driven action film, How to Rob a Bank is a pretty good audition reel.
The film’s flaws are real, and its tonal whiplash will frustrate some viewers. But its heart is in the right place, its cast is excellent and its anger feels genuine. In a year full of safe, focus-grouped studio product, a big, messy, impassioned movie about people fighting back against a rigged system is a welcome jolt.
RATING: ★★★½☆
That’s A Wrap | How to Rob a Bank
A slick, angry and surprisingly emotional heist thriller that never reconciles its caper fun with its social fury, but rides a terrific cast and a career-best Pete Davidson to a stirring finish.
Watch the Trailer Below:
CREDITS:
Director: David Leitch
Screenwriter: Mark Bianculli
Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Zoe Kravitz, Anna Sawai, Rhenzy Feliz, Pete Davidson, John C. Reilly, Christian Slater, Paul Sparks, Tati Gabrielle, Young Mazino, Alessandra Frugoli
Rating: R
Runtime: 2 hours 2 minutes
Release Date: In theaters November 13, 2026
