On the face of it, we shouldn’t love the “heroes and heroines” in a bank heist movie. For the most part, they are the criminals that are looking to steal all of the money that the bank vault holds. Some of it may well be ours. Perhaps it’s because they are portrayed as colourful likeable rogues who don’t want to hurt anyone. Also, the bank should be fully insured. So, safe in the knowledge that “insurance will pay for everything” at the back of our minds, we can watch on guilt-free.
If the criminals were ever to try and spend or deposit the cash they had stolen for real, then they would probably fall foul of the AML IDENTITY CHECK that banks and financial institutions run. For example, one of the best examples is that from https://www.w2globaldata.com/regulatory-compliance-solutions-and-software/aml-id-checks/. It’s all very well being clever and breaking into the vault but not if you can’t do anything with what you’ve got.
Apart from the loveable rogues part, the other reason we like the heist film is the ingenuity that the thieves put into getting into the vault or the bank’s safety deposit. We admire their intelligence and skill, even if they are breaking the law. For the most part, unless they are taking the money for a charity or saving an orphanage or something, they might succeed in robbing the bank, but ultimately they get caught at some point.
