Review: Roofman — Movies for the Rest of Us with Bill Newcott

Roofman

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Rating: R

Run Time: 2 hours 6 minutes

Stars: Channing Tatum, Kirsten Dunst

Writers: Derek Cianfrance, Kirt Gunn

Director: Derek Cianfrance

Reviewed at the Toronto International Film Festival

Channing Tatum proves he’s more than just a chiseled face in Roofman, a comedic drama based on the unlikely true story of Jeffrey Manchester, a convicted burglar who escaped from a North Carolina prison — and evaded a months-long manhunt hiding behind a display at a local Toys“R”Us store.

Of course, the guy can’t stay hidden forever; he ventures out to a local church just long enough to fall in love with Cindy, a charming divorcee played by a contagiously perky Kirsten Dunst. They make a sweet couple, but the real star of the movie turns out to be the great Peter Dinklage, who steals the show as the grinchy Toys“R”Us manager.

Roofman has all the ingredients of a lighter-than-air, goofball romp, and there are plenty of funny moments. But director Derek Cianfrance has more in mind — maybe a tad too much to hang on his schematic plot. The heaviness of his previous films — the dark, non-linear story of a doomed married couple in Blue Valentine; the tangible desperation of The Place Beyond the Pines; the parental angst of The Light Between Oceans — do not inevitably lead to a movie where the protagonist spends his nights cavorting through toy store aisles on inline skates and carrying around large stuffed bears on his shoulder. But Cianfrance nevertheless contemplates the nature of loneliness — Jeffrey may be free of prison, yet he’s still living a solitary existence in a cell-sized compartment — and the limits of loyalty, faced by Cindy as the truth about Jeffrey begins to dawn on her.

And a larger question: Can you change who you are without facing the consequences of who you once were?

Channing Tatum really, really wants to be a good actor. He clearly works hard at it. And he’s not a bad actor, not by any means. He was fun as a stuffy astronaut in Fly Me to the Moon and soberly sympathetic as a tormented wrestler in Foxcatcher. Roofman gives Tatum plentiful opportunities to be debonair and dumb, goofy and grim, scheming and sad. Cianfrance is clearly fond of his star, and labors greatly to guide him through a possibly career-defining role.

Still, as Tatum’s Jeffery romps through the toy store aisles and fumbles his way through a less-than-honest romance, it’s easy to long for a parallel universe in which Tatum plays the soulless Toys“R”Us manager and Jeffery is played by Dinklage, an actor whose incomparable range — from slapstick to Shakespeare — could have added untold layers of nuance to the character.

Roofman seems to hew pretty closely to the original events; many of the scenes are filmed at the actual locales Jeffery and Cindy frequented, including the local church (where Rogue One: A Star Wars Story villain Ben Mendelsohn appears as a compassionate preacher). And stick around for the post-credit clips of the real-life participants confiding their present-day perspectives.

Perhaps not so surprisingly, they all remain fond of the man who hid out in the Toys“R”Us. Roofman gives us no reason to disagree with them.