How To Rob A Bank trailer: Nicholas Hoult discovers crime is now a content vertical (cri-fi trailer).
Bank robbery used to have standards. A balaclava. A sawn-off shotgun. A getaway driver called Kev. A tense moment involving a vault, a stopwatch and someone sweating through a shirt from Burton. Now, if the trailer for How To Rob A Bank is any indication, even aggravated larceny has been dragged into the influencer economy, where no felony is complete until it has been streamed, clipped, monetised and accompanied by a thumbnail face suggesting mild constipation.
David Leitch’s new action comedy heist film looks at the modern criminal class and asks the obvious question: what if Bonnie and Clyde had a ring light, a posting schedule and a brand partnership with energy drinks? The answer, apparently, is Nicholas Hoult and Pete Davidson leading a crew of social media-savvy bank robbers who broadcast their heists and discover that going viral is a splendid way to attract followers, likes and the full digestive attention of federal law enforcement.
Hoult plays Ryan, because apparently the modern outlaw no longer needs a name like Mad Dog O’Rourke when he can just sound like someone who has opinions about standing desks. Pete Davidson is Vince, which feels exactly right, while Zoë Kravitz appears as Reagan Gardner, a brilliant software engineer under house arrest who is recruited to help catch them. John C. Reilly, meanwhile, is Agent West, a veteran FBI man who presumably thought the job would involve fingerprints and informants rather than trying to understand why someone has robbed a bank while dressed like an escapee from a mascot convention.
The trailer’s hook is deliciously stupid in the best possible way. Not stupid as in badly made, you understand, but stupid in the same way civilisation is stupid whenever it invents a new technology and immediately uses it to make life more humiliating for everyone involved. Humanity created global broadcasting networks and pocket supercomputers, and here we are, watching masked criminals turn bank robbery into a content funnel. Somewhere, a Victorian pickpocket is looking up from the afterlife and muttering, “Amateurs.”
There is also a satisfyingly chewy cri-fi idea tucked under the tyre smoke and wisecracks. Criminals have always wanted attention, from newspaper headlines to coded messages to the police. How To Rob A Bank merely updates the pathology for the age of the dopamine slot machine. In this world, a getaway is not enough. The heist has to trend. The loot is cash, but the real treasure is engagement. The danger is not just being caught by the police, but being caught by the algorithm, which is worse because at least the police eventually stop asking you to subscribe.
Leitch is a sensible choice for this kind of nonsense with kinetic intent. His recent career has been built around polished action where people are hurled through furniture with the elegance of hostile choreography. Bullet Train, Deadpool 2, Atomic Blonde and The Fall Guy all suggest a director who enjoys violence most when it has rhythm, colour and a faint grin of self-awareness. That is exactly the register a film like this needs. Too serious and it becomes a lecture about late capitalism with car chases. Too silly and it becomes Ocean’s TikTok. The sweet spot is somewhere between satire, stunt work and a man in an animal mask making the worst life choices available.
The cast is also doing a lot of heavy lifting before anyone has even opened a safe. Hoult has become one of those actors who can look charming, slippery, clever and doomed in the same expression, which is useful for a robber who has mistaken internet fame for invincibility. Kravitz brings the cool, surgical glare of someone who could dismantle your life using only a laptop, a bored sigh and your password being “Password123”. Reilly, bless him, remains one of cinema’s finest providers of weary decency, the sort of man who can make bureaucracy look human and exasperation look heroic. Christian Slater turning up in a heist film, meanwhile, feels like the universe remembering to season the soup.
The supporting roll call includes Anna Sawai, Rhenzy Feliz, Tati Gabrielle and Young Mazino, which gives the whole thing the air of a film determined not to let the audience sit still for more than three seconds. Even the premise has itchy feet. The robbers appear to believe they are modern Robin Hoods, although Robin Hood never had to worry about comments saying “fake”, “staged” or “mid”. He merely robbed the rich and gave to the poor, which was easier before everyone demanded a behind-the-scenes reel.
Here at SFcrowsnest magazine, we have long believed that cinema should prepare us for the future, and How To Rob A Bank appears to warn us that the future will be loud, fast, morally compromised and filmed vertically by someone who should know better. It is not quite science fiction, unless one counts the terrifying speculative technology of people voluntarily documenting their own indictments, but it does feel like a sister genre from the same collapsing family tree. Crime fiction has met social media satire, and the baby has stolen the bank manager’s phone.
Whether the film has more in the vault than a sharp trailer remains to be seen, but the ingredients look promising: David Leitch behind the wheel, Hoult with a grin full of bad ideas, Kravitz as the person clever enough to ruin everyone’s day, and John C. Reilly as the weary adult trying to stop the world turning into a heist-themed livestream.
How To Rob A Bank opens in cinemas in September 2026. Bring popcorn, disable location services, and remember: if your criminal masterplan includes a livestream, you may already have failed the tutorial.
