Setting a tone of sweet quirkiness from the opening scene — complete with a Randy Newman–style clarinet-and-piano soundtrack — Roofman indicates right from the get-go that it’s offering nothing but pleasant comedy hijinks. The film is drawing on an eccentric true-crime case involving a divorced Army veteran in North Carolina named Jeffrey Manchester (Channing Tatum) who finds he can’t fit into regular jobs in civilian life. So in order to make money to support his children, he begins a series of burglaries of fast-food restaurants, especially favoring McDonald’s. He always breaks in through the roof, hence the nickname “Roofman.” And he’s noted everywhere for his extreme consideration and politeness to frightened employees as he knocks over the place.
“Just a real nice guy,” they tend to say afterward.
Jeff’s voice-over narration says we might be wondering how many McDonald’s you have to burglarize before you’re living a comfortable middle-class life that allows you to buy your daughter quality presents for her birthday. “Forty-five,” he tells us, as we see the spacious new house in a suburban neighborhood where his wife and daughters now live. That’s how many. Good to know.
But the police finally catch up to Jeff at that very birthday party for his daughter where, at last, he gives her the bike she wanted. The house is wildly overdecorated in an all-pink theme, with lots of kids and parents there bearing gifts, when Jeff has to make a run for it, trailing balloons and streamers. His daughter watches him get tackled and cuffed.
Once Jeff’s in prison and sentenced to an absurdly extreme forty-five years behind bars, his wife cuts off all contact between him and his children.
Hmm. Not so pleasant, some of these hijinks. And in fact, the longer you watch the movie, the more you wonder what the hell director Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines) is trying to do. The second act gets…
Auteur: Eileen Jones
