Roofman Review
This crazy true life story is brought to life with passion and 90’s flair.
Jeffrey Manchester (Channing Tatum) is the Roofman - a criminal known for breaking into a series of McDonald’s through the roof. He’s caught and sent to prison, but the canny criminal escapes, and that’s where the most remarkable part of his story starts. Because far from being caught quickly, Manchester lives for months on the run from the police, hidden in a crawl space of a Toys’R’Us.
Roofman tackles a remarkable true story, and does so in a way that draws you in ever closer. The film begins with a bit of a strange pacing, primarily because the titular Roofman is caught early and sent to prison, in what one might assume would usually be the ending of a film. But that’s only because being sent to prison is where the most interesting parts of Jeffrey Manchester’s story starts, and the twists and turns that subsequently ensue are wild.
Similarly wild is the cast, which is absolutely stacked with wonderful character actors in the most minor of roles - keep your eyes peeled for surprise turns from the likes of Ben Mendelsohn, Peter Dinklage, and many more.
Channing Tatum is wonderful in the lead, depicting Manchester as completely charming, disastrously misconstrued, and utterly over his head. Tatum can embody so much of that in a single glance, and his work here once again cements him as a tour de force of performance capability.
Director Derek Cianfrance, with perhaps slightly lighter material than he is used to, nevertheless reaffirms his ability to find the tragedy, darkness and shades of grey in any situation, and brings a uniquely tragic lens to this story of a man who just wants to be loved.
The movie does run a little long, and drags on occasion. But overall, this is a film that could have been a glossy bigger budget jaunt that lost all of the wonderful indie nuance that Cianfrance gives it, and that would be a loss. So we should be thankful for that.
