These days the documentary field is littered with filmmakers taking an "activist stance" in their work. While admirable in theory it all too often amounts to little more than simply grasping whatever the current hot button issue might be (Iraq, global warming, Israel/Palestine), selecting a bunch of cable news clips that support their preconceived agenda, and decorating them with a preachy self-serving voiceover.
With that in mind it's refreshing to find a group of young filmmakers actually prepared to do a considerable amount of old fashioned legwork digging up those rough diamond stories and exhaustively working them into something. The result is a thoroughly engrossing, highly entertaining slice of life the likes of which you'll perhaps never come across again.
Only as Old as You Feel
Four years in the making this debut from directorial trio Lucas Jansen, Adam Kurland and Spencer Vreeman is a brilliantly researched profile of serial bank robber J.L. "Red" Rountree. Not so much a reign of terror as a series of quite confounding incidents, Red inexplicably began his six-year spree of robberies at a remarkable eighty-seven years of age.
Compiling interviews from family, glowing character references from friends and family, as well as testimony from some truly bewildered law enforcement, This is not a Robbery paints us a portrait of Red's life as we seek to understand just what drove him to such a place. Augmenting the fascinating talking heads are some ingenious digitally animated vignettes that colorfully depict Red's story.
We learn that Red was once a successful entrepreneur whose machine parts company grew exponentially during the oil boom from a fledgling idea into a large enterprise that turned Red a bona fide millionaire. Falling in love with a woman named Faye he financed her divorce before marrying her and raising her son. Then, thanks we learn to some seriously dodgy business advice, Red lost everything investing in a shipping venture that went belly up. The banks forced Red to declare
bankruptcy and took his home, something from which Red never truly recovered.
Red's Breaking Point
Several decades of bitter resentment towards the institutions he deemed personally responsible culminated in 2003 with Red walking into the First American Bank in Albine Texas, handing the young lady behind the counter an envelope marked "robbery," and politely asking that she place all the money inside it. This was Red's third robbery in five years.
Red never got away with that robbery. In fact he never got away with any of the robberies he carried out, always being apprehended at the scene or close by. This and the fact that he never used a weapon or displayed any intention of hurting anyone is what makes Red's tale such a fascinating, engaging story to watch.
Sadly Red died prior to the completion of the film so the one thing we never get is a one-on-one with the man himself. All we have is an audio recording of an interview he gave after his final arrest which the filmmakers cleverly employ throughout the film to allow Red to narrate his story to us. This firsthand account gives you a great sense of both the man and his rather pure motivations - an immensely likable, cantankerous old geezer possessing great humor who had it all and lost it all before waking up one day and deciding that he just really hated banks.
