How to Rob a Bank (2026) Review: Leitch's Livestream Heist

Ryan and his crew - Reagan (Zoë Kravitz), Emi (Anna Sawai), Hugo (Rhenzy Feliz), Vince (Pete Davidson), and Skyler (Tati Gabrielle) - have cracked a very modern formula: rob banks, film everything, upload the highlights, let the internet do the marketing. The heists get bolder as the follower counts climb, and the film's first hour hums with the giddy logic of people who believe going viral is a business model rather than a liability.

It is, of course, a liability. Veteran FBI Agent West (John C. Reilly) has been chasing ghosts since the bureau's old playbook stopped working, and his unlikely partner - a brilliant software engineer named Walton, played with dry menace by Christian Slater - turns the crew's own digital exhaust into a trail of breadcrumbs. The cat-and-mouse middle section is where the screenplay is sharpest, pairing the robbers' escalating theatrics with the investigators' quieter, nerdier countermeasures. Then comes the heist to end all heists, and the film leans hard into spectacle. The 122-minute runtime sags slightly under its final load, but it never loses momentum outright.

Leitch remains one of Hollywood's most reliable purveyors of kinetic action, and here he stages set pieces with genuine wit - a vault sequence cut to the rhythm of a livestream comment feed is the standout, and the fight choreography retains the bruising physicality that made his earlier work sing. The film looks expensive without looking plastic, and the crime-scene geography is legible, which is more than most heist movies manage.

The cast is the real engine. Hoult gives Ryan just enough desperate ambition to keep him sympathetic, Kravitz brings a coiled, watchful intelligence to Reagan, and Sawai's Emi is the crew's quiet moral center. Pete Davidson is deployed exactly as you'd expect - broad, loose, occasionally hilarious - and Reilly and Slater make for a genuinely enjoyable odd couple, their mismatched rhythms doing the comedic heavy lifting that the script sometimes struggles to supply. The satire is the weak link: the film wants to skewer influencer culture but can't resist the glow of the very fame it's mocking, so its sharpest observations get sanded down into punchlines. There's also a nagging sense of déjà vu - the masters of social media versus the old guard premise has been drifting around development offices for years, and the screenplay doesn't always find a fresher angle. Still, as a Friday-night crowd movie, this thing delivers.

Pros

• Terrific cast chemistry, especially Hoult and Kravitz
• Inventive, well-staged action sequences
• A genuinely funny Agent West/Walton investigative pairing
• Sleek pacing for most of its runtime

Cons

• Satire that flinches from its own target
• A familiar premise that rarely surprises
• Final act favors volume over cleverness
• Familiar plot beats for heist veterans

How to Rob a Bank is a very good time at the movies - a stylish, well-acted, expertly choreographed heist caper with a witty hook and a winning ensemble. It just isn't quite the sharp social satire it clearly aspires to be, and its final act mistakes escalation for satisfaction. Leitch's direction and the cast's charm carry it over the line, making this a strong recommendation for audiences craving a slick, funny action ride. TMDb users logging it at 6.9/10 feels about right - a film that's more fun than it is profound, and perfectly content with that trade.