Posts Tagged ‘Lily Collias’

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.

GOOD ONE: 3 ½ STARS. “ramps up the tension, one crossed boundary at a time.”

SYNOPSIS: In “Good One,” a new drama now playing in theatres, Chris (James LeGros), his 17-year-old daughter Sam (Lily Collias) and his best friend Matt (Danny McCarthy) take a weekend backpacking trip in the Catskills. When tensions arise, Sam is caught in the middle, between her bickering father and his oldest friend.

CAST: Lily Collias, James Le Gros, Danny McCarthy, Sumaya Bouhbal, Diana Irvine, Sam Lanier, Peter McNally, Eric Yates. Directed by India Donaldson.

REVIEW: You could be forgiven for expecting something more from “Good One.” The in-the-middle-of-nowhere set-up seems familiar, as though there is danger lurking around every corner, but this is not that movie. Not really, anyway.

The low-fi debut from director India Donaldson defies expectations with a movie that takes a simple coming-of-age idea and amplifies it with slow burn intensity. This is not a horror film, a cabin in the woods deal, this is an emotional tale about the dread of being belittled and unappreciated.

Sam, the youngest but perhaps most mature of the member of the hiking trio, learns valuable life lessons as she confronts her father’s controlling nature and microaggressions and Matt’s loutish, inappropriate remarks.

Not that she elucidates them.

She doesn’t need to because Collias, in her biggest role to date, does a remarkable job of allowing us to read the thoughts written on her face. Her expressions portray the complexity of the performance, but the beauty of her work is in its simplicity as she effortlessly (or so it seems) acknowledges the hard truths about her relationship with her father and Matt. The look on her face when she unburdens herself to Chris, only to have him respond “C’mon… can’t we just have a nice day?” tells us more than any lines of dialogue could.

She is the “good one” of the title; younger but wiser.

Instead of simply painting LeGros and McCarthy as oblivious older guys, Donaldson, who also wrote the script, gives them something to work with. They have backstories, insecurities and quirks that make them human, and not just avatars for clueless behavior. LeGros and McCarthy are excellent, handing in naturalistic, relatable performances.

“Good One” takes its time to get where it is going. The bucolic backdrop, with its gently rolling hills and babbling brooks, sets the tone. It can sometimes feel like nothing is happening, but somehow, Donaldson delicately ramps up the tension, one crossed boundary at a time.