Channing Tatum charms in a stranger-than-fiction tale

Jeffrey Manchester’s (Channing Tatum) life is so bizarre, you might roll your eyes and think “only in the movies” until you realise it is based on a true story.

In 1998, Jeffrey is out of the Army and unable to get a proper job to support his family — wife, Talana (Melonie Diaz), daughter Becky (Alissa Marie Pearson) and twin boys.

Channing Tatum in ‘Roofman’
| Photo Credit:
Paramount Pictures/YouTube

Seeing Becky’s disappointment at her birthday present, and after talking to Steve (LaKeith Stanfield), his friend and sergeant in the Army, Jeffrey decides to embark on a life of crime. Steve reminds Jeffrey of how his powers of observation helped him in the Army and Jeffrey puts those skills to use to rob fast food restaurants by gaining entry through the roof.

After over two years and 40 robberies, Jeffrey is a successful thief, providing his family with all sorts of nice things and capturing public interest as the “Roofman”.

Jeffrey is polite and kind to the people he robs, insisting they wear their coats before locking them in the meat locker, and even giving an employee his coat. All good things have to come to an end and Jeffrey is arrested at Becky’s birthday party.

Sentenced to 45 years in prison, with Talana cutting off all ties with him, Jeffrey again puts his superior powers of observation to escape from prison.

Once out, Jeffrey holes up in a toy store. He makes himself a place to stay at the store, eating candy (which gives him a phenomenal number of cavities!) and wearing clothes with cartoon characters on them. Steve, who is running a lucrative fake identity racket with his girlfriend Michelle (Juno Temple), tells him to lay low for a bit.

Being a smart guy, Jeffrey figures out how to switch off the recording on cameras while vicariously living through the employees of the toy store.

He finds out that the manager, Mitch (Peter Dinklage), is generally mean and refuses to give Leigh (Kirsten Dunst), a divorcee, some time off to spend with her daughters.

A still from the film
| Photo Credit:
Paramount Pictures/YouTube

When he hears Leigh asking Mitch to donate toys for her church’s toy collection drive, Jeffrey decides to “donate” (he steals them from the toy store) toys. At the church, the pastor Ron (Ben Mendelsohn) and his wife Eileen (Uzo Aduba) are welcoming and before he knows it, Jeffrey has said yes to a singles event.

As Jeffrey’s relationship with Leigh grows, he gets enmeshed in more lies. Though Steve is willing to get Jeffrey a new identity, Jeffrey is unsure whether he can let Leigh and her daughters—Lindsay (Lily Collias) and Dee (Kennedy Moyer)—go.

Derek Cianfrance, who directed the unrelentingly grim mini-series, I Know This Much is True, has gone for a lighter tone with Roofman, which he wrote with Kirt Gunn. Several people involved in Jeffrey’s life have cameos in the film.

Tatum is believable as the smart but clueless Jeffrey. Bringing out his inner child in the toy store is quite endearing. Tatum and Dunst have a believable chemistry. The ever-dependable Dinklage tries to do what he can with his underwritten character. Shooting on 35 mm film gives Roofman a nostalgic late-’90s and early-2000s look. Though the pacing falters at times—especially in the draggy second half—Roofman nevertheless remains a sweet, funny, heart-warming film.

Roofman is currently streaming on Lionsgate Play