Nearly two dozen bank robberies. Millions of dollars in spoils. During the 1990s, a masterfully prolific bank robber began an unprecedented crime spree throughout the city of Seattle. As law enforcement officials tried — and repeatedly failed — to apprehend the person responsible, they came up with a nickname for the elusive man behind a series of facial prosthetics and extensive makeup: Hollywood.
How to Rob a Bank, the new documentary film from directors Stephen Robert Morse and Seth Porges, features interviews with Scott Scurlock’s accomplices and friends, the journalists who covered the drama as it unfolded, and the detectives and agents who ultimately brought the rash of robberies to an end.
The man behind the enigmatic Hollywood identity was a preacher’s son who started cooking meth in college. He used the money to buy property in Olympia, Washington. Scurlock decided to pivot to bank robberies after seeing the movie Point Break. Scurlock partnered with his pal Steve Meyers, and they became so proficient at the crime that they hit at least 19 banks between 1992 and 1996, stealing a total of $2.3 million. While knocking over targets, Scurlock borrowed cinematic flourishes from the big screen — but as seen in so many heist movies, the good times couldn’t last forever.
“This film is not just about the logistics of bank robbery. To us, it is about our awesome capacity as people to self-mythologize and our unending thirst for freedom — no matter the cost,” Morse and Porges told Netflix. “Like Scott, we may imagine ourselves as movie heroes or Wild West outlaws, but every move we make has ripple effects that impact others, as well as ourselves.”
When the FBI teamed up with Seattle’s police department to take Scurlock down, they were determined to prove that no one could outsmart the authorities. What ensued was a thrilling real-life version of cops and robbers with life-and-death stakes. The 1996 heist Scurlock planned to be his final score ended in a gunfight with police. Though he got away, the law tracked him down a day later on Thanksgiving. Like his Point Break idol Bodhi, Scurlock opted to end his own life rather than surrender. The tree house crumbled to the ground within two years of his death.
“There is a ‘Scott’ and a ‘Hollywood’ inside all of us,” Morse and Porges said. “The fun, funny, and loving part of us that is there for our friends and family — and the selfish id within that just wants more, more, more. One is no more ‘real’ than the other. They coexist, and it is up to us to keep our dark side at bay. Or to put it another way: Just because we know how to rob a bank, that doesn’t mean we should.”
Watch How to Rob a Bank on Netflix now.
