Product Details

• Actors: Nick Stahl
• Format: Widescreen
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001OU5AXW
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #348,688 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love this movie, January 2, 2011

By 

David Hoyt - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How to Rob a Bank (DVD)

I love this movie. It's not complicated, nor deep. But that's part of its charm. A simple pleasant comedy. I've watched it many times when I just want something light and amusing.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Boring, November 18, 2008

By 

ScrawnyPunk (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Rob a Bank (DVD)

I didn't know it was possible to make a boring bank robbery movie, but apparently it is. Jinx (Nick Stahl) is a disgruntled paycheck-to-paycheck Gen-Y quasi-slacker stuck in a bank vault with would-be robber Jessica (Erika Christensen). Gavin Rossdale is Simon, the anti-depressant popping sociopath waiting outside the vault with an itchy trigger finger and a bank full of hostages. Terry Crews is Officer DeGepse, the half-competent police negotiator allowing his strings to be pulled by Jinx. And David Carradine is the voice of Nick, the robbery's mastermind. In a useless plot device, the key bank robbers (Nick and Simon) take their names from Duran Duran since they use a fansite to mask their communications over the internet.

What happens? Not much. Jinx recruits Jessica to his side (despite lack of apparent chemistry between the two actors), sees through Nick's masterplan, rants about bank charges, plays Simon and DeGepse against one another to engineer a way out of the safe, and (presumably) splits the eventual take with Nick and Jessica.

At the end of the day, this seems like a waste of Nick Stahl's talent. Nothing really makes sense in this movie - from the robber's Duran-Duran-obsessed cabal, to the origin of the stolen money (banking fees which are somehow unclaimed), to the location of the all-important computer terminal (locked in a branch vault as opposed to a corporate site or secured facility), to Jinx's ability to turn his `captive' robber, to the final escape. Most of the movie appears either poorly conceived or unbelievable.

The `escape' scene is emblematic of the movie's inability to carry any semblance of logic, suspense, or momentum. Jessica has to appear as Jinx's captive to fool Simon, while appearing as an innocent bystander to escape DeGepse's notice and prosecution. All is solved by having a jammed gun (a recurring motif throughout the movie) go off and plug Simon in the forehead, ending everyone's troubles. Nice, tidy, and completely unrewarding. I'll take The Bank Job or Heat any day over this one any day.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Clever And Promising Heist Satire Derails Itself With Uneven And Clunky Narrative, December 31, 2010

By 

K. Harris "Film aficionado" (Albuquerque, NM) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How to Rob a Bank (DVD)

I actually wanted to like writer/director Andrews Jenkins' "How to Rob a Bank." I think there's a genuinely clever idea at work in the film's premise and some effective and pointed satire about the current state of our financial institutions (and, indeed, about mechanized bureaucracy). Jenkins wants to infuse this satire into a twisty bank heist and, again, this seems like a pretty good idea. So with a nice beginning, an ingenious narrative device listing the various steps to robbing a bank, and a workable and intriguing plot--I'm sad to say that, ultimately, "How To Rob a Bank" still fell a bit short of success (for me anyway).

The cast includes Nick Stahl (generally underrated), Erika Christensen (still not fulfilling the great promise displayed in "Traffic"), Terry Crews and Gavin Rossdale. When a disillusioned and broke Stahl stumbles into a bank robbery in progress, he inadvertently gets locked into the vault with one of the robbers (Christensen). The plot to pillage the safety deposit boxes, however, is just a cover for a more sinister electronic theft. I think that the actual idea behind the whole heist is solid, creative and interesting. Stahl becomes a go-between for the detective on the scene (Crews) and the primary robber in the bank (Rossdale). Eventually everyone is plotting against everyone else, and it's a race to see who can be the master manipulator.

Sounds good, huh? The two biggest problems, however, also come in the scripting. The stylized dialogue and outright speechifying is not organic or believable. While I thought that some of the extended monologues had merit, they do not flow as realistic speaking and actually serve to slow the narrative. But, by far, the biggest liability in "How to Rob a Bank" comes from the three way interactions between Rossdale, Crews, and Stahl. So patently ridiculous in a film filled with smart notions, these pivotal exchanges come out as cartoonish. Crews, in particular, is a likable actor stuck in a moronic role! He doesn't even know how to contact a bank robber with hostages--he relies on Stahl to give him a cell phone number. No land lines, no bullhorns, nothing. This is just one bit of ineptitude when every scene featuring Crews is painfully and patently false.

I'd be curious to check out Jenkins' next project. I think he's got some good ideas, they just need to be refined into a more cohesive screenplay. "How to Rob a Bank" has promise, and I enjoyed Stahl--but it is wildly uneven. When a clever idea sinks under the weight of clunky and convenient execution, it's always a disappointment. About 2 1/2 stars. KGHarris, 12/10.