Image via Segolene Liger / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Nicholas Hoult at the Red Sea International Film Festival, December 2025.
How to Rob a Bank is out today in cinemas across the US. It is David Leitch's new heist film, and it arrives with a split verdict from the critics. The idea is a strong one. The reviews say the film around it is not always as strong.
Nicholas Hoult plays Ryan, the leader of a Pittsburgh crew who call themselves the Wolf Pack. They film their bank robberies and post them on a YouTube channel called How to Rob a Bank. The videos make them famous online. They also put the FBI on their trail.
The story
Ryan's crew treats each job as content. Emi, played by Anna Sawai, is Ryan's wife and the crew's getaway driver. Hugo, played by Rhenzy Feliz, runs the tech and the channel. Vince, played by Pete Davidson, is an Afghanistan veteran who joined the crew. They steal from banks and give the money away, which wins them fans online.
On the other side are FBI Agent John West, played by John C. Reilly, and Reagan Gardner, a hacker played by Zoë Kravitz. The crew plans one last big job as the net closes in. The film runs 122 minutes, and a few critics say that is part of the problem.
What the critics are saying
At the time of writing, on Friday morning, Rotten Tomatoes has the film at 35% from 60 critics. That number has slid all week. It opened at 50% from 20 reviews, then dropped to 42% from 36. Metacritic has it at 47 out of 100 from 24 critics, which it calls "mixed or average". It is now the lowest-rated film of Leitch's career. His previous low was Bullet Train at 53%.
| Outlet | Score | What they said |
|---|---|---|
| Collider | 5/10 | The film "takes the fun out of crime". A sudden tonal shift midway "feels like whiplash", and there is too little of the action Leitch is known for. |
| Reviews on Reels | 2/5 | "A flashy but flimsy heist film" — "flashy on the surface and formulaic underneath". |
| ScreenRant | 6/10 | "Timely, flashy thriller with thin characters" — but still "a breezy, diverting time at the movies". |
| Empire | 2/5 | "Starts off like the Jackass team cosplaying Point Break" and "comes up short on sexiness and style". |
| The Guardian | 2/5 | Fighting the system "can sure feel hopeless at times but it really shouldn't feel this pointless". |
| Slant Magazine | 1.5/4 | Leitch and writer Mark Bianculli "too often mistake a loud voice for a profound one". |
| IndieWire | B- | Leitch "leans into the movie's digital revolution as hard as circumstances allow". |
| ComingSoon | 8/10 | "An entertaining and timely addition to the cops-and-robbers genre". |
| The Hollywood Reporter | Positive | Praised its "unexpected heart and a finger on the zeitgeist". |
| Radio Times | 3/5 | "Highly watchable but uneven" — a mix of action, comic turns and grim side plots. |
Read together, the reviews agree on more than the score suggests. The premise is timely, the cast gets praise, and Pete Davidson, who plays Vince, has drawn some of the warmest words in the early reactions. What critics keep coming back to is the gap between the idea and the film. The characters stay thin, the message about wealth and banks stays surface-level, and the middle drags at two hours long.
The cast
| Actor | Character |
|---|---|
| Nicholas Hoult | Ryan / The Wolf, leader of the crew |
| Zoë Kravitz | Reagan Gardner, a hacker |
| Anna Sawai | Emi, Ryan's wife and getaway driver |
| Rhenzy Feliz | Hugo, the crew's tech guy and social media manager |
| Pete Davidson | Vince, an Afghanistan veteran |
| John C. Reilly | Agent John West, FBI |
| Christian Slater | David Walton |
| Tati Gabrielle | Skyler, Vince's partner |
| Paul Sparks | Agent Roberts, FBI |
| Young Mazino | Marquis Collins, a lawyer |
| Alessandra Frugoli | Michaela DeLuca |
Hoult and Kravitz worked together before, on Mad Max: Fury Road in 2015. He played Nux and she played Toast the Knowing. This is their first film together since then.
How it got here
The film was first set for 4 September 2026, the Labor Day weekend. Amazon MGM moved it to 13 November in July, which put it up against a busy weekend at the box office. Filming took place in Pittsburgh in June 2025. Mark Bianculli wrote the script, and Brian Grazer is among the producers, with Imagine Entertainment and Leitch's own 87North behind it. The film cost a reported $60 million. Early forecasts put the opening weekend at $10 million to $15 million.
When and where to watch
| How to Rob a Bank | Details |
|---|---|
| US release | Friday 13 November 2026, in cinemas |
| Runtime | 122 minutes (2 hours 2 minutes) |
| Rating | R — language, some violence, brief drug use |
| Director | David Leitch |
| Writer | Mark Bianculli |
| Studio | Amazon MGM Studios |
| Other dates | France 11 November; India 20 November (20 November is the India date, not the US date) |
For now, cinemas are the only place to see it. No streaming date has been announced. If the opening weekend lands where the forecasts say it will, word of mouth will decide how long it stays on screens.
Read More: Nicholas Hoult Biography, Age, Height, Net Worth, Wife & How to Rob a Bank
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