M, 104 minutes
2 Stars
Review by © Jane Freebury
The original Bank of Dave film has picked up a lot of likes on Netflix since becoming a surprise hit a couple of years ago. It wasn’t an in-house production initially, but the streaming platform has stepped in and quickly landed a sequel with a new chapter on the businessman in Burnley, UK, who took it to the banking establishment when he applied for a banking licence.
As it has been well over a hundred years since a new licence was granted, there may still be quite a wait, but Dave Fishwick has set up a savings and loans office that operates to all intents and purposes as a community bank. Love it.
Moreover, good guy Dave Fishwick, social activist and community hero, exists. He is based on a real-life character, a self-made millionaire businessman, who set up a lending service offering low interest rates that don’t capitalise excessively on the customers who need to turn to its services.
Rory Kinnear returns to the role. The actor has been a plummy-accented baddie in the Bond franchise, and we wait to see more of his menacing Prime Minister in the latest television series of The Diplomat. He is an intriguing casting choice for this Lancashire businessman who loves his wife and a bit of karaoke amongst friends at the pub.
An Olivier-award winning actor, Kinnear, is very versatile and can easily muster the requisite swagger for someone who is both a success in business and committed local hero. There is a bit of casting against type here, but the most endearing character for my money is a struggling contract writer, Jessica, played by a chill Chrissy Metz. A large lady, with a New Yorker sensibility and a great singing voice, this endearing character is played by an actor who understands when less is more.
A story worth telling, incredibly plucky, is let down this time
Dave—first-names please—commissions her from afar to do some research. There are parent companies stateside that have established loan shark businesses outside the UK and, through a loophole, managed to charge their British customers interest rates that risk sending them broke.
Jessica tracks the boss, Carlo Mancini (Rob Delaney), to his lair deep in Paterson, New Jersey. He’s the kind of guy from whom you either ‘take the silver, or the lead’. The character’s enormous black moustache and villainous music hall presence gives the game away. By this and other obvious cues in Bank of Dave 2, including plangent strings in an over-emphatic musical score where there should have been a bit of drama, we find we don’t need to work very hard at all.
Occasionally, the film is playful. With the odd wink-and-a nod to folks outside the frame as a character addresses us directly, breaking the fourth wall for a brief moment. Some ‘what are you looking at?’ moments that may catch you off guard are a bit of fun. The whole project could have done with more of this.
So, this second chapter, loosely based on real life events that were brought to light widely in a Channel 4 documentary in 2014, is a slight one. There are a few laughs and heart-warming moments, there is pub karaoke as well as unexpected live music treats, and an entertaining performance from Chrissy Metz. But under-investment in the writing has let Bank of Dave 2 down.
Of course we want to cheer this modern-day Robin Hood on. Taking on the banking establishment to get a better deal for his community, then taking multiple loan shark operators to court is incredibly plucky and a story worth telling.
Although the latest true-ish story from director Chris Foggin and screenwriter Piers Ashworth offers another drama inspired by real life that battlers everywhere can respond to, the Bank of Dave sequel is weak rather than robust, even though the original story probably had just as much going for it.
First published in the Canberra Times on 9 August 2025. Also published on Rotten Tomatoes
Image of Dave (Rory Kinnear) in Bank of Dave 2: The Loan Ranger, courtesy Netflix