Jeffrey Manchester is a fugitive. He also happens to be a pretty nice guy. He robs dozens of McDonald’s locations by entering through the roofs and trapping employees in walk-in refrigerators, but he usually tries to make sure everyone is wearing a coat first.
Even after he’s caught, Manchester — played in a new film by Channing Tatum, his natural geniality at full volume — continues his nice-guy ways when he escapes from a North Carolina prison. He tries to lay low but ends up attending services at a local church, where he falls for a kind single mother named Leigh Wainscott (Kirsten Dunst).
Of course, Leigh has no idea that her new boyfriend is not only using a pseudonym and deceiving her about his top-secret government job, but also hiding out from the police by living in the walls of the Toys “R” Us at which she works. He’s nice, but a liar.
Therein lies the central tension of “Roofman,” a lighthearted drama loosely based on the real-life story of a former U.S. Army Reserve officer. The film largely takes place during a six-month period when this antihero bounces between his two identities: Is he resigned to life as Jeffrey Manchester, a struggling father who turned to crime as a means of providing for his family, or could he possibly reinvent himself as “John Zorn,” Leigh’s charming beau and a reliable father figure to her two teenage daughters?
This internal struggle transforms “Roofman” from what could have been a run-of-the-mill heist movie into an intriguing character study, even if it falls just short of success.
Given the film’s buoyant humor and the silly image of a Hollywood hunk hiding out in a toy store, it might surprise some to learn that “Roofman” was directed and co-written by Derek Cianfrance, who earned a reputation for heart-wrenching melodrama with “Blue Valentine” in 2010 and “The Place Beyond the Pines” more than two years later. “Roofman,” written with Kirt Gunn, is a much breezier watch — but it still embodies Cianfrance’s trademark fascination with desperate choices and their unavoidable consequences.
Jeff makes one bad decision after another, often against the advice of his frustrated Army buddy Steve (LaKeith Stanfield). Tatum is an apt casting choice, having mastered the art of playing lovable goofs by summoning a sensitivity that endears them to the audience. There is a doggedness to Jeff’s most stubborn tendencies, a relentless desire to provide for others that Tatum conveys with vigor. Jeff might quietly sneak around Toys “R” Us at night, but he bulldozes his way through life.
Leigh is more cautious. She is a protective mother and as guarded in love, slow to allow Jeff/John into her inner world despite being the one to ask him out in the first place. Dunst plays the character like a woman curled into herself. Her hesitant movements suggest she has been burned before, which the man she knows as John is perceptive enough to pick up on.
Though “Roofman” boasts a strong supporting cast — including Ben Mendelsohn and Uzo Aduba as a pastor and his wife, plus a hilarious Peter Dinklage as Leigh’s abusive boss — the film thrives most in scenes between John and Leigh. As in “Blue Valentine,” Cianfrance excels at capturing the fuzzy feelings of new love. He trains his camera on Leigh singing at church as though she is the only person in the choir, allowing viewers to share in John’s adoration. Cianfrance and cinematographer Andrij Parekh contrast the harsh lighting and vibrant hues of Toys “R” Us with a gentler color palette whenever John spends time in Leigh’s presence, signaling the calming effect she has on him.
While this romance fuels “Roofman,” it can’t always mask weaker points in the script. Beyond establishing his stubborn nature, the film doesn’t fully explore why Jeff, a rather well-mannered person, insists on staging robberies to stay afloat. Was this really his only option? Cianfrance passes on the opportunity to examine the failures of a system that encourages a veteran to defy law enforcement out of sheer desperation.
And so the film falters as Jeff is yanked back into the reality of his precarious situation. While Tatum and Dunst do their best to see it through, tasked with delivering carefully calibrated performances as Jeff’s two lives come crashing together, “Roofman” leaves us hanging.
R. At area theaters. Contains language, nudity and brief sexuality. 126 minutes.
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