©Courtesy of Netflix
Dozens of 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 man responsible, they came up with a nickname for the elusive man behind a series of masks and facial prosthetics: Hollywood.
How to Rob a Bank is a docuseries chronicling Hollywood’s robberies and stranger-than-fiction life story. For starters, the nickname was more accurate than authorities could have possibly known: Scott Scurlock, the brilliant outdoorsman and premed student turned meth dealer behind the crimes had actually decided to pivot to bank robberies after seeing the movie Point Break.
Many of the cinematic flourishes he employed while knocking over targets were borrowed directly from the big screen, but like so many other heist movies, the good times couldn’t last forever.
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.
How to Rob a Bank features interviews with Scurlock’s accomplices and friends, the journalists who covered the drama as it unfolded, and the detectives who ultimately brought the rash of robberies to an end.
Produced and Directed by Seth Porges and Stephen Robert Morse. Executive produced by Liz Decesare, Trish Dolman, Christine Haebler. Music by Leo Birenberg, Ramiro Rodriguez Zamarripa. Cinemaphotograph by Domenic Barbero, Jacob Sacks Jones.
©Courtesy of Netflix