Roofman, a mid-2000s comedy-drama starring two actors who were stars at the time, possesses considerable movie-star charm. It's also reminiscent of a film that would have been released back then; a brief glimpse into a Blockbuster video store makes it easy to imagine renting it on a rainy afternoon.
In that sense, it's perfectly entertaining, gripping enough to keep us from hitting the stop button, though not so much that we'll want to rewind once it's over. It's based on the stranger-than-fiction story of Jeffrey Manchester, played by Channing Tatum, an ex-military father of three who simply can't find his place in the civilian world. His former army buddy, Steve (Lakeith Stanfield), reminds him of his unique powers of observation and encourages him to use them.
Director: Derek Cianfrance
Writers: Derek Cianfrance, Kirt Gunn
Stars: Channing Tatum, Kirsten Dunst, LaKeith Stanfield
Instead, after disappointing his daughter once again with a disappointing birthday present, he decides to use it for something less successful: robbing not one, but 45 McDonald's, earning sky-high profits and earning enough to give his family the life they deserve.
Writer-director Derek Cianfrance and co-writer Kirt Gunn accelerate his descent into crime too quickly, giving him a hard-to-follow direct line from defrauding his daughter to massive theft. What kept him convinced about his new career was his cordiality during the heists, his courteous treatment of employees, and his strict prohibition of violence. He was caught and sentenced to 45 years in prison, a sentence that ultimately alienated his understandably weary wife.
His knack for observing the small details leads him to concoct an ambitious escape plan, fooling the guards and returning to the streets. Determined not to return, he finds the perfect place to hide until Steve can help him with a fake passport: a Toys R Us store. He first hides on the roof, of course, before climbing down and taking refuge in a hidden section of the store, eating M&Ms and baby food and spying on the staff (led by a convincingly mean and nosy Peter Dinklage). One of them is Leigh (Kirsten Dunst), a single mother he can't help, a slippery slope that leads him to create a false identity, getting into more and more trouble.
It may be hard to believe—a wanted criminal who goes unnoticed while courting a single mother and wooing a local church (led by Uzo Aduba and an uncharacteristically undisturbing Ben Mendelsohn)—but most of the events in Roofman are eerily true. At times, it feels as though Cianfrance, whose past is darker—from his emotionally ruinous divorce from Blue Valentine to the crime drama The Place Beyond the Pines—could have turned it into a thriller, a near-sociopathic liar hiding a criminal record while weaving an unstoppable web of lies. But Roofman is a warmer, gentler film, as polite and eager to please as Jeffrey himself. Cianfrance even brings back his Blue Valentine composer, Christopher Bear (of Grizzly Bear fame), to add a softer touch to his often sadder sound (his score is also wonderfully reminiscent of a robust 2000s studio film).
It works primarily thanks to Tatum and Dunst, an unlikely on-screen pairing of single parents in their 40s, both trying to navigate a stressful situation, difficult enough even without the criminality. There's real chemistry, initially of an amusingly confusing nature, as she mistakes his charmingly harmless demeanor for his homosexuality.
The relationship, as predictable as it is simple, as he tries to win over his sullen teenage daughter, could have been more specific and natural, but they struggle to sell it, especially Dunst, who effortlessly plunges into the chaos, one of her best performances in a well-deserved and prosperous new career phase. I found myself rooting for her, but perhaps less for Roofman himself, a character whose crimes, lies, and bad decisions are never as charming or understandable as the film tries to present them, and as the authorities close in, it becomes even harder to care whether he survives, a force of chaos that complicates the lives of those around him.
Another more textured film might have attempted to portray him as something more than a lovable rogue, but Roofman focuses too much on making us feel good rather than bad. I would have settled for a conflicted image.
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