Roofman

Grade: B-

The most delightful parts of Roofman are the scenes and moments that demonstrate the title character’s sneaky clever resourcefulness. This guy snuck into and robbed more than 20 McDonald’s locations, not to mention breaking out of prison, followed by finagling his way into a Toys “R” Us, where he lived for about 6 months without anyone aware he was there. 

But let’s go back to the beginning, and he has quite a story. Channing Tatum plays Jeffrey Manchester, formerly with the Army. As the actual Manchester did in real life, Tatum spends so much of the movie with a materialistic mindset, constantly thinking that he needs to provide people with goods and toys – when really, just showing up and being the best himself he can be is enough. He’s told this in the film. It’s this self-imposed pressure that leads him into criminal activity for the first time ever. 

He’s clever as hell, and it starts with the McDonald’s break-ins. He gets well-known among his victims as being the nicest, most polite burglar there could ever be, in acts such as making sure everyone has a coat for when he has to lock them in the walk-in cooler. His actions finally catch up to him, and he gets into prison, but not for long. When he escapes, he stows away in a Toys “R” Us store, where he sets himself up with a nice living situation for about half a year.

He meets T”R”U employee Leigh (Kirsten Dunst) at her church. He goes by John, and they strike up a relationship. This subplot, as well as his never ending Ocean’s 11 type sneakiness, are my favorite elements of the movie, and I would have been happy to have had more of that. It’s easy to forget that all of this really happened, as I waited, and hoped for, the traditional movie progression where things are going great, then the truth comes out with a dramatic climax, followed by a happy resolution. What ends up transpiring is sad, and obviously more in line with real life, and we don’t get as much of the fun breezy action romance the trailers seemed to suggest.

The cast is very charming. Tatum does some of the loveliest work I’ve seen from him. LaKeith Stanfield is fun as Steve, an old Army buddy of Jeff’s, who is a wizard at making problems go away. Things would have been just fine for Jeff if he had only listened to Steve. Peter Dinklage plays the manager of the T”R”U, as the quintessential asshole retail boss. An ongoing subplot where he keeps doling out inappropriate unnecessary comments to an employee – too timid to stand up for himself – about his weight gets a payoff that I appreciated.

Kirsten Dunst and I are less than a year apart in age. She’s 11 1/2 months younger than me. I feel like I’ve grown up with her. I had a crush on her in her heyday. She played my favorite character in the movie version of The Virgin Suicides – my favorite book. I wrote a song about the character. (It’s called “Spirit of Lux.” Track #2 off my White River album.) I got flak from a parental unit for having a Maxim magazine. Once I explained that I only bought it because it had an interview with Dunst (Bring it On was about to come out), everything was all good. I was bewitched by her work in the underrated Crazy/Beautiful, which made my top ten list in 2001. And, going without saying, she is my favorite Peter Parker love interest. I like what she brings to Roofman.

As Roofman is based on a true story, with everyone involved still alive, it’s almost critic-proof in that regard. Whenever I thought about “notes” I had – plot points I wanted more/less of, a different ending, pacing and the like – well…the answer to the “why wasn’t there more of such-and-such” question is: because that’s not what happened. Kudos to it for telling the story and telling the truth, but I wanted to live in the fantasy a little more.

Grade: B-