This Is Not a Robbery

After standing in a line that wrapped around the block, we were finally let in to the documentary This Is Not a Robbery about senior citizen bank robber JL Rountree. The documentary followed an interesting timeline mixing both the biography and the later bank robbing spree of Rountree. This Is Not a Robbery constantly teetered between hilarity and heart breaking tragedy and sometimes this all came wrapped together in the same story. For example, while in federal prison (as the oldest inmate) in Florida, another inmate tried to steal Rountree’s shoes. Rountree attacked him with his cane, shattering the inmate’s arm.

It turned out that Rountree had lost his only son in a car accident when the son was only 23. Rountree’s wife, with whom he had a “50 year love affair”, died early of cancer. Rountree was left to grow old alone and miserable and always remembered the banker that at one point in his life had put him into bankruptcy. And so at the age of 83, he began to rob banks.

Rountree was not a very successful bank robber and ended up in jail more than once. The southern justice system was always sympathetic to him and more than once let him out of jail early to live out the rest of his days in peace. Rountree would immediately start planning his next robbery.

One of the best interviews in the film was with the teller Rountree had robbed at a bank in Jacksonville, Florida. She admitted that after the robbery she became paranoid around the elderly and had to quit her job at the bank. She is now an elementary school teacher.