There have been some high-profile new additions to Netflix in the last few weeks, including Squid Game season 2 and American Primeval, but hidden amongst the uploads is a new movie that Netflix hasn't been promoting very much. That's a shame because the movie, which is now available to stream, is a sequel to one of the best films it's made.
This new movie, released on Friday, January 10, is called Bank of Dave 2: The Loan Ranger, and as you can probably tell by the name, it continues on the story from 2023's Bank of Dave.
Bank of Dave was about a businessman from a small town in England who created a local bank to support businesses in the community, despite pushback from big financial institutions in London. It's based on the real story of Dave Fishwick, albeit with some major changes (Fishwick didn't manage to set up a bank in real life, and instead made a lending company).
In Bank of Dave 2: The Loan Ranger, we catch back up with the fictional Fishwick two years after the first movie. This time, he's turned his attention to payday lenders, which are companies that lend people small amounts of money to tide them over to payday, in exchange for high fees.
Alongside an investigative reporter and a Citizen's Advice counsellor, The Loan Ranger will see Dave try and take on the predatory practices of these companies, which puts him up against powerful opponents and taken to court.
Rory Kinnear is back as Dave himself but his two co-leads from the first movie, played by Phoebe Dynevor and Joel Fry, are out. Instead he's joined by Chrissy Metz as the journalist and Amit Shah as the counsellor. Hollywood star Rob Delaney also joins the cast as the villain and Jo Hartley and Hugh Bonneville both return as Dave's wife and nemesis respectively.
The original Bank of Dave was a heart-warming and fun tale about an underdog taking on a much more powerful opponent, and its message about hugely powerful organizations being dangerous felt surprisingly potent for a movie made by media megacorp Netflix. It wasn't one of the streamer's biggest movies but according to the BBC, it did manage to be the 9th most searched movie of the year in the UK (one below Cocaine Bear).
Oddly, the streamer hasn't been making as much of a song-and-dance about The Loan Ranger as you'd expect for the sequel to a great movie like that. There have been very few adverts or social media posts about it; in fact, the last time Netflix's UK Twitter account mentioned it was 10 months prior to release, before it had a release date or even a title! (at least, from what I can find). Instead Netflix is focusing on its recently-
I'm What to Watch's streaming expert who writes weekly round-ups about what's coming to Netflix each week, and even I didn't realize its release was so soon!
That's why I wrote this story; so you know that you can stream Bank of Dave 2: The Loan Ranger now.
In real life, Fishwick actually did confront payday loans. In 2014 he hosted a series for the UK's Channel 4 which saw him investigate and explore these loans, speak to people who've found themselves owing loads because of them, and also bail out people in his community who owe a lot. This show was called Dave: Loan Ranger
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