How to Rob a Bank turns the heist into content

Rob a bank, keep your head down. That used to be the idea.

The crew in How to Rob a Bank wants an audience. Its members broadcast their robberies online, giving a veteran FBI agent and a software engineer a very public trail to follow. Nicholas Hoult and Pete Davidson are among the robbers; Zoë Kravitz and John C. Reilly are on the other side of the pursuit.

David Leitch, who directed Bullet Train and The Fall Guy, directs from a screenplay by Mark Bianculli. The film opens in U.S. theaters on Friday, November 13.

The audience is part of the job

The studio’s synopsis says the crew pushes toward its most ambitious robbery as the investigators close in. It also describes beliefs the group is willing to risk everything for. The publicity leaves a question worth following: how much of the spectacle serves those beliefs, and how much serves the people watching?

An audience changes the pressure on a heist crew. A smaller job can look like a retreat once viewers expect the next big stunt. That is the part of this premise we want the film to explore: what happens when getting away with it stops being enough?

Where Zoë Kravitz fits

Kravitz plays Reagan Gardner, a hacker drawn into the chase. In her June interview with British Vogue, she described someone who can understand both sides of the conflict. The official clip “You Don’t Smell Busy” gives Kravitz and Reilly a scene together, making it a useful next stop after the trailer.

She comes to this film after playing Selina Kyle in The Batman and directing Blink Twice, which she developed with E. T. Feigenbaum. Her interest in a character caught between opposing positions gives us a specific reason to follow Reagan. Our Zoë Kravitz profile connects the new film with the rest of her work.

The faces around the chase

The ensemble gives television audiences a few familiar faces. Anna Sawai won the 2024 lead actress drama Emmy for Shōgun, where she played Toda Mariko. She is on the crew side here, among people who make their own robberies public — a long way from the world that made her name, and exactly why her presence is worth following into this one.

Rhenzy Feliz played Victor Aguilar in The Penguin after his run as Alex Wilder in Marvel’s Runaways. In this film he is part of the crew broadcasting its robberies, another ensemble built around dangerous choices — this time with the public watching every one of them.

Davidson brings a comedy audience into the crew alongside Hoult, Sawai and Feliz. The Hoult and Davidson pairing is the easy point of curiosity before opening weekend: how do their characters work together when recording the crime is part of the job?

Reilly plays the veteran federal agent pursuing the crew, with Kravitz’s software engineer drawn into the chase beside him. Their shared clip gives the investigators a space of their own before the film opens — two people arriving at the same problem from very different kinds of experience. Christian Slater is billed as Walton, and viewers who know him from Mr. Robot will clock the connection to another story about hackers pushing against powerful systems. Hoult’s own recent credits include Lex Luthor in Superman and a lead role in Nosferatu.

On set with David Leitch

Leitch came to directing through stunt work. He and producer Kelly McCormick founded 87North, and his earlier work includes doubling Brad Pitt on Fight Club. That background makes the action design a useful way into this film’s production: he designs movement around the characters instead of decorating scenes with it, and a heist staged for cameras inside the story gives that instinct a second layer to work on.

The official gallery includes a genuine on-set photograph of Reilly and Davidson with Leitch and cinematographer Jonathan Sela. Megan Schoenbachler took the photograph. It is a production image identified by the distributor, separate from the scenes in which the robbers are filming themselves.

For more production material, start with the official First Look featurette. The studio has also published its Get Pumped for Stunts and Taking Down the Man pieces. Some international uploads carry November 12 end cards; the U.S. opening is November 13.

How to Rob a Bank opens November 13. Watch the trailer and explore the cast on Previously.