David Leitch’s ‘How to Rob a Bank’ Tumbles to a Career-Low Rotten Tomatoes Score

‘How to Rob a Bank‘ was supposed to be David Leitch’s chance to prove that his stylish, high-energy action could power a fresh kind of crowd-pleaser. The Amazon MGM Studios heist thriller follows a crew of social media-savvy bank robbers who broadcast their daring heists, unaware that their growing viral fame has put them in the crosshairs of a veteran FBI agent and a brilliant software engineer.

Leitch built his reputation on ‘Atomic Blonde’, ‘Bullet Train’, ‘Deadpool 2’ and ‘The Fall Guy’ after serving as the uncredited co-director of ‘John Wick’. The cast includes Nicholas Hoult, John C. Reilly, Zoë Kravitz, Anna Sawai, Rhenzy Feliz and Pete Davidson. The movie reached theaters on November 13 after an earlier September release date.

Principal photography began in Pittsburgh in June 2025, and Mark Bianculli wrote the script. Kelly McCormick, Brian Grazer, Jeb Brody, Allan Mandelbaum and Leitch produced. According to a report on Leitch’s interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Hoult worked through an ACL injury while performing much of his own physical action.

Now the verdict is arriving, and it is rough. The R-rated, 2 hour 2 minute film sits at 33% on the Tomatometer from 78 reviews. That makes it the lowest-rated film of Leitch’s career.

The slide has been steep. When the first reactions arrived, the film sat at 50% on 20 reviews, and the Popcornmeter had not yet posted a score. World of Reel also reported a 53 on Metacritic. A later snapshot put it at 46% from 24 reviews before the score dropped again.

The timing is awkward for the studio. One analyst pegged the budget at $80M and said the film was already tracking toward an opening around $9M before the reviews landed.

The reviews are not uniformly negative, but few are glowing. The A.V. Club gave it a C+, saying the film smashes and grabs 2 or 3 different movies at once, with entertaining moments that don’t always feel compatible. Time Out awarded 3 out of 5 stars and called it a fun, throwaway action-thriller.

CinemaBlend said some of the harsh reviews give off the same vibes as Amazon MGM’s 2025 ‘War of the Worlds’. The outlet also noted that an anti-banking message financed by Amazon isn’t helping the film’s case, according to some reviews. Action sequences deliver for many reviewers, but they don’t seem to save the movie from itself.

Even fans of the director admit the flaws. One early reaction called it Leitch’s weakest movie of the decade, praising the stylized editing while calling the characters half-baked. Another early reaction was far warmer, describing a wildly entertaining, non-stop action story. The A.V. Club noted that none of the 6 movies Leitch has made since ‘John Wick’ has topped that franchise.

Leitch has been clear about what drew him in. He told Complex that “it was the fact that this was a fresh take on the heist genre,” a genre he had long wanted to tackle. The producers at Imagine saw a thriller speaking to a generation told to chase the American Dream, only to graduate with enormous debt.

To capture the film’s look, Leitch immersed himself in the YouTube algorithm and the new media people consume daily. He also believes viewers will start having deeper conversations once they understand the crew’s motivations. They may ask themselves how far they would go if trauma like that hit their own lives.

Who’s robbing who? How To Rob A Bank – only in theaters September 4. https://t.co/KAlmI8LsZp

— Amazon MGM Studios (@AmazonMGMStudio) June 2, 2026

An early Tomatometer score is a snapshot rather than a verdict. The Popcornmeter could tell a different story once more audience ratings arrive. Still, the gap between the film’s ambition and its reception is hard to ignore.

For a director whose action craft is rarely questioned, the split reaction raises a bigger question. Do the social commentary and the spectacle ever fully click?

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