This is another one of those films that was damn near perfect but they threw a lot of character development into the middle of the film that I largely felt was unnecessary and therefore the film ended up being 2 hours long. I strongly believe that there is some sort of unwritten law in Hollywood where if you want to be in the award picture, you MUST make a film that is 2 hours long.
That being said, this was an enjoyable experience overall that had me feeling a wide range of emotions throughout. The casting was done pretty well with both Kirsten Dunst and Channing Tatum outperforming what I expect of them, especially Tatum.
This is a story about Jeffrey Manchester who is a real life person who really did most of what is presented in the film. I am always a bit hesitant to believe "true stories" ever since the Coen Brothers completely duped me with their Fargo "true story* that was 100% made up.
But I did my background check after watching this movie and found out that while some rather inconsequential liberties were taken for certain parts of the plot, the events portrayed are extremely accurate and come from speaking to Jeffrey Manchester himself over the course of more than a year.
The story about Jeff is that facing financial difficulty and marriage and parenting woes that revolve around money, he decides to break into places and rob them using a rather inventive technique. He would break into businesses via going through the roof and then wait there until the staff showed up in the morning. He was a very polite thief and ultimately his kindness and treating his prisoners with respect was ultimately why he ended up getting caught. He did go on with this for a very long time while completely evading authorities though.
This isn't a spoiler because it is in both the poster and the trailer but the film focuses mainly on how he lived inside of a Toys 'R Us store for months while he waiting for the heat on him to die down. He would live off the snacks in the store and on occasion leave at night to go and get supplies only to return and set up some sleeping quarters in an area that the staff were not going to discover during the day.
After a while though, he ended up meeting up with some church folks who didn't know about his criminal background and they accepted him as one of their own. This is where he gets a bit sloppy and as the viewer you will find yourself saying "oh man! That's gonna get you caught!" many times while all of this is going on.
The filmmakers did a good job of showing what I think was the real situation and how most people would eventually want to be able to return to "regular life" instead of always living on the run because his captive life in the toy store wasn't really all that different from being in prison since it was always very dangerous for him to break from his routine.
One of the only things that disappointed me about the entire film, other than the drawn out middle part, was Peter Dinklage having a role in the film at all. He just seems really out of place in his role as the manager at the Toys 'R Us and I can't really even point my finger at why. Probably because try as he may, I can't really take him seriously as an authority figure.
The film is narrated often by Jeffrey, but they do a good job of doing mostly showing and not telling throughout the entire movie. I frequently get annoyed at films that are over-narrated but in this one the things they do narrate would honestly take too long to show it on screen rather than just have the narrator tell you about it. The film is too long already so I am glad they made this decision.
While this is primarily a dramatic and serious film, there is also a decent amount of comedy in there and it's easy to understand how someone who spends months hiding inside of a toy store would start to go a bit loopy.
I looked up online and found out that the filmmakers actually found an old Toys 'R Us and ordered a ton of retro toys online to fill up the shelves and as someone that was alive and absolutely loved Toys 'R Us when they were in their heyday, I really appreciated the authenticity of all of that.
You will feel yourself going through a wide range of emotions while watching this film because at the end of it all the things that lead Jeff to be in this position in the first place was societal pressures of consumerism and his inability to keep up with that without resorting to a life of crime. Jeff, the real person and as portrayed in the film, is not a bad guy, he just can't keep up with the Jones' and he sees no way to rectify this situation other than robbing others. I think they missed a great opportunity there to talk about the dangers of such things but whatever... it's a good film.
Should I watch it?
Well this is where things get a bit tricky and depends on you as a person. If I hadn't already had a productive day when I sat down to watch this I would have started to feel anxious in the middle of the film where things just seem to drag on. You'll know what I mean when you get there. Busy people will likely feel as though the film should be about 30 minutes shorter than it is and I would agree with them in this thinking.
I believe that almost anyone will enjoy this movie if they can be in the right state of mind when they do sit down to play it. If you are the type of person that is doing multiple things at once, as I frequently am when watching movies, you'll be ok with this one because a good 1/3 of the film can be skipped entirely without really losing any of the story.
This film kind of underperformed at the box office but it did manage to turn a profit by pulling in $32 million on the $18 million budget. This isn't necessarily considered a financial success in the movie industry since it is often the case to promotional costs can normally double the budget of the film.
This film may still be in some theaters and can be rented or purchased on almost all major streaming networks. It is NOT on Netflix. If you can wait about 30 days or so, it will likely be streaming on Paramount+ in the future as part of a subscription, because Paramount distributed the film