ROOFMAN: 2 ½ STARS. “Tatum brings warmth, humour, some pulse racing sequences.”
SYNOPSIS: Based on a true story, “Roofman,” now playing in theatres, stars Channing Tatum as an escaped convict who avoided detection for months by living in a Toys “R” Us store.
CAST: Channing Tatum, Kirsten Dunst, Ben Mendelsohn, LaKeith Stanfield, Juno Temple, Melonie Diaz, Uzo Aduba, Lily Collias, Jimmy O. Yang, and Peter Dinklage. Directed by Derek Cianfrance.
REVIEW: A showcase for its star’s charm, “Roofman” stretches credulity until it is paper thin. If not for Channing Tatum’s innate likeability this story of a vet who turns to a life of crime so he can afford a normal life with his kids would be a stone-cold clunker.
Set in 2004, when Blockbusters still dotted the landscape, “Roofman” is the true story of former United States Army Reserve non-commissioned officer Jeffrey Manchester. His years of service gave him the unique talent of being able to analyze situations and expertly determine operational weaknesses. “I see things other people don’t see,” he says.
The skill comes in handy on his return Stateside.
Unable to get meaningful employment or hold his marriage together, he scopes out McDonald’s locations, learning their routines, particularly when and how they make bank deposits after a brisk weekend business. Discovering all the chain restaurants operate in essentially the same way, he begins a crime spree that sees him enter a restaurant through the roof and hide inside until the first shift arrives. He then gets them to open the safe, grab the “weekend corporate burger money,” lock the workers in a walk-in cooler and flee.
Forty-five or fifty robberies into his crime wave ends with a sentence of forty-five years in prison. Inside, he once again uses his power of observation to make a daring escape. On the run, he settles in Charlotte, North Carolina, finding shelter in a Toys “R” Us store.
It’s here the movie really begins, as we learn about Manchester’s survival skills—he lives, undetected in the store for 8 or 9 months—and his relationship with Leigh Wainscott (Kirsten Dunst), a single mom and Toys “R” Us employee.
Tatum plays Manchester as a nice guy driven to extremes by circumstance. Sure, he locks burger joint employees in room-sized coolers, but he always makes sure they wear jackets to stay warm. He’s a sensitive soul who, on the phone from prison, tells his daughter, “We don’t say goodbye, because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.”
It’s an effective performance that brings warmth, humour, some pulse racing sequences and even a wild, nude chase scene to the film’s overlong two-hour running time. But despite Tatum’s presence and Dunst’s kindly work, “Roofman” has a hard time finding its tone. A multi-hyphenate—it’s a romantic-true crime story with farce, light humor and loads of family drama. Tatum runs the gamut and hands in one of the most emotive performances of his career, but the film’s various elements feel like puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit together.
Comments are closed.
