How many McDonald’s would you have to rob to afford a nice house, birthday presents for your kids, and a tidy nest egg for the future?
Luckily, you don’t have to find out, because Jeffrey Manchester (Channing Tatum) already did the math. It turns out 45 robberies will do the trick, with the best success coming from cutting a hole through the roof. That’s how he got his titular nickname and became a local celebrity during his spree in the late ’90s and early 2000s.
A prison guard once described Jeffrey as a “genius” and “complete idiot” in the same sentence. Both of those are true, with his methods and efficiency being unparalleled when it came to stealing money.
But he’s also a good guy, which is not an asset in this line of work. He never resorted to violence and even gave his coat to a McDonald’s manager when he temporarily locked them in the freezer. He only decided to commit robberies after he was embarrassed by not being able to provide nice things for his wife and three children.
It’s that dichotomy between criminal mastermind and lovable loser that makes Manchester such an interesting character. It’s just a tad disappointing that co-writer and director Derek Cianfrance – taking a major studio-sponsored detour after a string of harrowing indies like “Blue Valentine” and “The Place Beyond the Pines” – tends to commit a lot more resources to the latter.
Sure, we’ve all been down on our luck a few times and fantasized about how robbing an unimportant place would solve a lot of problems. But we never go through with it. God forbid someone does do it, one minor robbery probably isn’t enough to deem them a bad person. But forty-five robberies? At that point, I’d need a REALLY good explanation.
Despite his knack for diving deep into the traumas and rationales of his characters, Cianfrance doesn’t offer much of a reason for all this madness. Why was Jeffrey never able to land a steady job when he clearly had a strong set of skills and was well-liked by everyone he met? Why didn’t he stop robbing once he had enough money?
These holes steadily grow into gaps the more the story progresses, with even more piled on once Jeffrey escapes from prison and hides in a Toys “R” Us for months.
Yes, you read that right. For almost a year, Jeffrey hid in the back rooms of a Toys “R” Us, taking showers using the bathroom sink and subsisting on a diet of candy and baby food. It’s there that he grew fond of Leigh Wainscott (Kirsten Dunst), a single mother of two teenage girls just trying to make ends meet. They strike up a relationship when he donates a bunch of toys to her church. Never mind that all those toys are stolen from the store she works at, and that Jeffrey has to lie about every personal detail under the guise that he’s working for the government.
Aiding Cianfrance’s decision to keep things lighter than they probably should be is Tatum’s pitch-perfect casting. He dances through the store at night, smashes a Tickle Me Elmo display when it nearly gives him away, and genuinely wants to be a positive influence on Leigh and her daughters.
It’s the question so many of Jeffrey’s victims asked: How could such a good person be so lost?
Dunst is wonderful as well, forcing herself to quiet the rational part of her brain just so she can preserve something good that finally happened in her life.
I may fault “Roofman” for leaning too much into comedy, but I have to admit it’s very smart about being extremely funny. Ben Mendelsohn and Uzo Aduba play a husband-and-wife preaching duo at the church, and they – along with the single women’s prayer group – welcome Jeffrey into their flock with open arms.
Doing all of these things at this register is not something I would have expected from Cianfrance, so it’s nice to see him stretch his wings a little. I wonder if he’d be interested in the story of William Scott Scurlock, “The Hollywood Bandit,” who robbed 19 banks in Seattle by wearing elaborate, Hollywood-quality disguises?
Paramount Pictures will release “Roofman” in theaters nationwide on Oct. 10.
Eden Prairie resident Hunter Friesen is a film critic who owns and operates The Cinema Dispatch, a website where he writes reviews, essays, and everything in between. He’s also the film critic for the Woodbury News Net. He currently serves as the president of the Minnesota Film Critics Association and travels the globe covering film festivals both big and small. To view his entire body of work, you can visit his website and Instagram.
