# The pizza bomber heist gets a black comedy

> Courteney Cox turns America's strangest bank robbery into a pitch black comedy with Patricia Arquette and David Harbour.
- Title: The pizza bomber heist gets a black comedy | Shortify
- Summary: Courteney Cox turns America's strangest bank robbery into a pitch black comedy with Patricia Arquette and David Harbour. A true crime case too absurd for…
- Keywords: true crime, black comedy, tiff, film review, courteney cox, pizza, bomber, heist, gets, black, comedy, The Hollywood Reporter
- Source: The Hollywood Reporter — https://hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/evil-genius-review-patricia-arquette-david-harbour-1236700717
- Author: Michael Rechtshaffen
- Published: 2026-09-15T20:14:18+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: true crime, black comedy, tiff, film review, courteney cox
## A heist too strange to invent
The 2003 Pizza Bomber case sits in the you-can't-make-this-up file. Two Erie, Pennsylvania residents plotted to rob a bank using a pizza delivery driver as their front man.

> There are few true crime stories worthier of being filed under "You Can't Make This Sh*t Up"
## The collar bomb plan
The driver walked up to the tellers' window posing as a hostage, with a fake explosive device locked around his neck. The bomb was supposed to be a prop.
## It went wrong fast
Police apprehended the would-be robber outside the bank. Then the bomb went off anyway and killed him on the spot.

> the bomb nevertheless detonated, instantly killing him
## Netflix got there first
A four-part 2018 series, Evil Genius: The True Story of America's Most Diabolical Bank Heist, laid out the tangled events before and after the explosion.
## Cox directs it as comedy
In her second feature behind the camera, Courteney Cox plays the material as a wildly devious, perfectly pitched black comedy rather than a grim reenactment.
## Arquette and Harbour go all in
Patricia Arquette is fearlessly gung-ho as ringleader Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong. David Harbour, buried under a bushy grey beard and thick glasses, plays her brainy accomplice Bill Rothstein.
## Key takeaway

A true crime case too absurd for drama finds its natural register as black comedy, and Cox nails the tone.