Roofman is one of those movies you enjoy, forget about it instantly as soon as you leave the theater, and you’d bet the house that ninety percent of the script is fabricated beyond belief. The performances, particularly from Peter Dinklage, are amusing. Channing Tatum finds plenty of heart and vulnerability in a relatively thin role.
That being said, with a movie like Roofman, you have to find hidden themes to make the journey worthwhile. Ones that include economic precarity, exploitation of trust, violence as currency, and how the “American Dream” has become inverted. Most of these are lightly touched on, especially with the treatment of veterans after they serve our country.
Roofman Plot
However, most of these are not touched with the feather of pr ofoundness. Instead, abandoning real-life issues for an air-brushed and contrived romance that has little believability. Treating real-life issues with a comedic touch instead of engaging with them. And that’s disappointing since the film’s director specializes in crime, class, and moral drift.
The film is based on the true story of Jeffrey Manchester (Tatum), who hid inside the retail toy-store chain Toys ‘R’ Us after escaping prison. In reality, Manchester hid inside the wall of a vacant Circuit City next door. However, I suppose it is more profitable to use product placement of a brand name that is still recognizable, rather than one that has ceased to exist.
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Moving on, Jeff is divorced, struggling to make ends meet, and unable to afford a birthday gift for his daughter. So he begins to rob local McDonald’s restaurants — yes, this movie was made because the true story has product-placement potential in droves — across North Carolina by breaking through the rooftops. Jeff was polite and was soon caught and imprisoned for his crimes.
Roofman Review
The script from director Derek Cianfrance (A Place Beyond the Pines, Blue Valentine, see what I mean about crime, class, and moral drift?) and writer Kirt Gunn (Sound of Metal) then begins to manipulate audiences because Jeff’s ex won’t let him see his daughter. To which you will say, yeah, no kidding, you are an armed criminal, what mother would?
So he escapes his shackles, and Jeff breaks into the kids’ store after his friend and fellow veteran Steve (LaKeith Stanfield) tells him he needs to lie low for a couple of months. He sets up a thieves’ den behind a hollow bike display against a wall. There, he sets up spy cameras as voyeuristic entertainment to watch the manager (Dinklage) and an employee, a single mom (Kirsten Dunst), bicker in a nod to our obsession with reality television.
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The movie wants us to see Jeff as charming, but he really isn’t. He looks like, you know, Channing Tatum — that helps. Even though his face is shown all over the state, he begins to move freely outside the store, even joining a church group. Even an ex-police officer doesn’t make the connection. The script offers a lame excuse that people soon forget.
Is Roofman worth watching?
Cianfrance and Gunn even double down, having a group of intelligent people believe Jeff’s story that he is an undercover agent who cannot talk about his assignments. That is the thing; Roofman is too determined to fit inside genre expectations, instead of embracing Manchester’s flaws. The movie is meant to be light and breezy, presenting a fabricated character rather than a meaningful portrait.
As entertainment, yes, you could do much worse than Roofman. It is a studio production featuring hundreds of product placements, and an impressive cast signed on for minor roles, including the great Ben Mendelsohn, Uzo Aduba, and Juno Temple, with little to do. It sacrifices authenticity for a feel-good genre that falls short of expectations.
You can watch Roofman only in theaters October 10th!
