As The Big Bad Wolf bluntly explains at the beginning of How to Rob a Bank, the modern economy has become so thoroughly rigged against the average person that the American Dream feels completely unattainable. The odds of owning a home are 3 in 10, the lowest rate in nearly 75 years. The odds of earning a six-figure salary are 2 in 10, while the odds of becoming a millionaire sit at just 1 in 100. But the odds of successfully pulling off an armed bank robbery? According to the film, 9 in 10. When the deck is so thoroughly stacked against you, when you're more likely to live below the poverty line than get caught trying to escape it, why not play the numbers game and take what's yours?

How to Rob a Bank is the latest entry in a growing cinematic subgenre fueled by collective frustration toward corporate institutions that treat the public as little more than endless sources of extraction. The Uprising channeled these modern anxieties through the story of a fourteenth-century peasant revolt. I Love Boosters targeted labor exploitation within the fashion industry. Possible Love examined how late-stage capitalism has eroded nearly every trace of optimism within the working class. This film feels like a fusion of the first two (you would be hard-pressed to find any semblance of Lee Chang-dong here), with the result being an action-comedy with a serious attitude problem.

To be clear, the protagonists, played by Nicholas Hoult, Anna Sawai, Rhenzy Feliz, and Pete Davidson, are criminals, full stop. They are the modern descendants of John Dillinger and Jesse James, only their faces appear on TikTok feeds instead of newspaper front pages. Yet those historical outlaws would envy the degree of narrative control available to contemporary criminals. Clicks, likes, reposts, comments, and followers have become as important as firearms. Attention has become more powerful than a gun.

The group's robberies are carefully designed for maximum visibility. Sporting colorful outfits and animal masks, they record their crimes and edit them into MLG-styled highlight reels complete with flashy graphics and meme-worthy moments. They become antiheroes for a generation raised on TikTok, Fortnite, and viral fame, who have become less interested in politely requesting change than shocking a broken system into acknowledging them.

Attempting to stop them is John C. Reilly, who is unconvincingly cast as a stern FBI agent nearing retirement. His character is increasingly exasperated that the country's premier crime-fighting organization cannot catch criminals who willingly upload evidence of their own crimes. Now even the government has embraced outsourcing, recruiting Reagan Gardner (Zoë Kravitz), a hacker under house arrest who developed a program capable of tracking anyone through social media activity. Every successful robbery increases the crew's follower count, inspiring copycats eager for their own taste of internet-infused notoriety.

Director David Leitch finds himself on more stable footing here than he did with The Fall Guy. That film attempted to celebrate stunt performers while simultaneously burying that message beneath a mountain of increasingly elaborate action sequences. In How to Rob a Bank, Leitch avoids repeating that mistake by keeping the film relatively grounded amidst the physical and digital chaos. The conceit of the crew operating under the guise of YouTube tutorials lends the robberies a semi-plausible quality, with equipment sourced online and conveniently linked in the video's description. That said, the film still suffers from a recurring issue found throughout many productions from 87North, which is that the stunt work is so meticulously choreographed and polished that it occasionally draws attention to itself rather than enhancing the visceral impact of the action.

Leitch must lean heavily on those directorial strengths because Mark Bianculli's screenplay offers only the roughest sketches of actual characters. Each member of the crew is equipped with a standard-issue tragic backstory, whether it be the loss of a child, predatory lending, medical malpractice, or some other life-altering hardship that pushed them toward crime. Rhenzy Feliz receives perhaps the shortest straw. After a brief mention of his abuela and an impressive long-take sequence as he moves through his neighborhood greeting residents, he doesn’t say one line of dialogue that isn’t simply some reaction to what’s just happened.

Surprisingly, Pete Davidson emerges as one of the film's most effective performers. Playing the voice of reason within the group, his character’s years in the army teaching him first-hand how fast the line between life and death can be crossed. A midway sequence focused largely on his character is compelling enough to make you wish some screenwriter would craft a down-and-dirty crime film around him.

Near its conclusion, How to Rob a Bank borrows liberally from Todd Phillips' Joker, complete with the final set piece unfolding in the city streets as a riot erupts in support of the main character after a confrontation with a smug authority figure is captured on video. Protesters wear masks to blend into the crowd, transforming individual outrage into a collective movement. The grunge of that 2019 film is not found here, with social media turning the collective anarchy into bite-sized content to be liked and reshared. The revolution might not be televised, but it will definitely be streamed.

Amazon MGM Studios will release How to Rob a Bank in theaters nationwide on November 13th.