How to Rob a Bank

Half the fun of writer-director Andrews Jenkins’ feature debut — a heist film that gets everything right about a crime that goes all too wrong — is keeping track of who is doing what to whom and why. Who is robbing the bank? What are they after? These are the simple elements that keep rearranging themselves as Jinx (Nick Stahl) and Jessica (Erika Christensen) find themselves trapped inside a vault, with bank-robber Simon (Gavin Rossdale), stuck on the other side of the vault door, and the police stuck outside the bank. A fresh, freewheeling take on a genre perennial, Jenkins’ film playfully hits the reset button every time things seem to settle into place. –IFC Films