Roofman
★★★
M 126 minutes
Years ago there were reports that Channing Tatum was set to star in a gender-flipped remake of Splash, as a merman who steps onto dry land and falls in love.
Derek Cianfrance’s true-crime comedy-drama Roofman isn’t too far off in spirit. Rather than emerging from the sea, Tatum’s character Jeffrey Manchester is a dream man who almost literally falls out of the sky.
Channing Tatum in Roofman.Credit: AP
As romanticised as this version of his story might be, the outline is accurate enough. Manchester came to fame in the late 1990s as the Rooftop Robber, responsible for a long string of hold-ups at McDonald’s restaurants across the United States (his modus operandi was to break in through the roof, taking advantage of the skills he’d acquired as a paratrooper).
After escaping from prison, he found an unlikely refuge in the back rooms of a Toys ‘R’ Us store in Charlotte, North Carolina. In the film, we again see him hiding out in the roof, while using the store’s security cameras to spy on the manager (Peter Dinklage) and his staff, among them Leigh Wainscott (Kirsten Dunst) a kind-hearted single mother who volunteers at a local church.
Here’s where the romcom part of the movie kicks in. Having appointed himself a kind of guardian angel to Leigh, Jeff donates a bag of discarded toys to the church, where he masquerades as an enigmatic government employee named “John Zorn,” presumably no relation to the experimental musician.
Before long he’s been coaxed into joining the congregation, and it doesn’t take long either for Leigh to welcome him into her heart and home. Having put an unsuccessful marriage behind her, she knows a good thing when she sees it, or she thinks she does.
Cianfrance is a gifted director, with an evident love of actors and an equally strong sense of space, showcased here in the robbery and chase scenes. But his skills seem to lead him in too many directions at once: Roofman is a sustained exercise in cognitive dissonance.
Jeff is positioned from the outset as a decent, well-meaning guy, whose crimes are basically victimless and are committed for the best possible reason – so that he can buy nicer presents for his young daughter (Alissa Marie Pearson).
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Yet if we think of him in real-world terms, he has a screw loose somewhere. Bluntly, he’s a manipulative liar who will do anything to be liked – and while he has a gift for analysing a situation and finding a way out of trouble, he seldom gives much thought to the long-term consequences.
Rather than giving his hero a straightforward redemption arc, Cianfrance invites us to keep both perspectives in mind at once. But Tatum, a good actor within his range, is a little too focused on being charming in his usual self-assured, cagey way.
Even Jeff’s occasional outbursts of anger, like smashing up a display of Tickle-Me-Elmo dolls, don’t go far beyond petulance. Nor is the script by Cianfrance and Kirt Gunn much interested in exploring where the character’s delusional side might spring from.
By contrast Dunst, at her impressive best here, plays it all too real, especially in the many close-ups the film allows her. We see how smitten Leigh is with “John,” but also her fear that she’s letting things move too fast, and equally that this slightly worrying guy might turn out to be her last chance.
It’s a performance that maintains credibility even where Roofman as a whole doesn’t. Could anyone continue to look like Tatum after living for weeks or months largely on peanut M&Ms? If you’re willing to suspend disbelief, this may be the film for you.
Roofman is in cinemas from Thursday, October 16.
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