The Robber is a piece of taut Eurocrime which, while unambitious, is also lean, unpretentious and effective.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 8, 2019

The viewer is left to wonder at Johann's motivations, while he simply tears up the screen.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 8, 2019

This overall orchestration of The Robber as a kind of cinematic device for marking contrastive states of existence is, crucially, mirrored in Rettenberger's own formalistic attitude towards his own existence.

| Nov 27, 2017

The strange relationship between compulsive personalities and physical fitness is at the heart of [this] engrossing and complex yet economically straightforward character-driven thriller.

| Original Score: B+ | Jun 2, 2014

Something of an endurance test.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 20, 2014

For those who prefer a bit of existential vagueness to being led by the nose, this is a thought-provoking as well as a technically impressive piece of work.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 18, 2014

A thriller that deliberately doesn't thrill.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 17, 2014

A detached and precise piece of heist filmmaking - more coldness than Heat - but watchable for that.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 16, 2014

Here is a well-made movie with insufficient interest in its hero.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 4, 2011

"The Robber" is artfully done but emotionally remote.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 10, 2011

Even if you think you don't like foreign-language films, I bet you'll like this one.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 10, 2011

Johann operates with rules of the onscreen gangster ... [Yet he] is a noir protagonist, trapped and doomed by his past.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Jun 3, 2011

The Robber is powerful stuff.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 26, 2011

"The Robber" is one of the most abstemious thrillers in recent memory.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | May 20, 2011

Armed with a screenplay adapted from a Martin Prinz novel based on a true story, writer-director Benjamin Heisenberg has crafted something as serious, quietly determined, and surprisingly compelling as his criminal protagonist.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 13, 2011

With his taut rhythms, poetic imagery, and assaultive action, Heisenberg transforms the thrills of the genre into an existential fable worthy of Camus.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 12, 2011

... the remarkable story of an amazing enigma of a man who gives you no reason to be sympatric toward him but you do, in the end, anyway.

| Original Score: B+ | May 11, 2011

This may be the first art house film that's literally fashioned as a 'roller coaster ride.'

| Original Score: B+ | May 11, 2011

The Robber's race to mediocrity ends with a dying phone call, which among other things is the death of inspiration.

| Original Score: 2/4 | May 9, 2011

This story of real-life Austrian criminal Johann Kastenberger is both tranquil and gripping.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 5, 2011