This movie is not complicated at all, actually one I would recommend to watch, its about Jeffrey Manchester, this guy who was in the army reserves and comes home to his three kids and baby mama who works at McDonalds, he cannot hold down a job for some reason even though he is clearly smart as hell, like he can memorize every house on his block with all the details without even trying, his observation skills are insane, but somehow he still makes the dumbest decisions possible, his friend even tells him straight up that he is the smartest dumb person he knows and thats basically the whole movie right there. Jeffrey decides to start robbing fast food places by breaking through the roof, he did this over 40 times across multiple states before getting caught which is absolutely wild. The way he does it is kinda funny too, he breaks in through the roof early morning and waits for employees to show up, then comes out all polite like good morning everyone this is a robbery but please get comfortable, he even makes sure people have their coats on before locking them in the freezer because he is worried they might get cold, like what kind of criminal does that, its this weird mix of threatening people with a gun but also being considerate about it. Then he gets busted and sentenced to 45 years which seems harsh as hell considering he did not actually hurt anyone physically, the judge threw the book at him with kidnapping charges just because they knew he did other stuff they could not prove, that whole scene pissed me off because its like you cannot just add time for crimes you think someone did without actual proof, thats some bullshit right there and you can see it on Tatums face he is thinking the same thing.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4627382/
- Platform: Paramount+
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Jeffrey breaks out of prison in this really clever way, he works in the mechanic shop and builds this box thing under a delivery truck so he can hide when guards check underneath, once he is out he decides to hide inside a Toys R Us in Charlotte for six months which again sounds absolutely insane. The Toys R Us stuff is probably the most fun part of the movie, watching him figure out how to survive in there is entertaining and hilarious, he finds this little spot behind where they keep the bikes and sets up a whole nest like a big human rat, at night when everyone leaves he turns off the security cameras and runs around the store doing whatever, washing his ass in the bathroom sink and eating baby food and peanut MMs because thats all he has got. Peter Dinklage plays the store manager Mitch and he is hilarious too, this guy is such a dick to his employees for no reason and all his facial expressions are perfect, the running joke about someone eating all the peanut MMs is great because Mitch keeps blaming this other employee Otis but its obviously Jeffrey the whole time. What I do not get is how nobody noticed like 10000 dollars worth of video games missing from inventory or that the security cameras were not recording for months, Mitch seems like the type who would check that shit constantly but I guess he is too busy being a jerk to everyone, maybe if he spent less time bullying Otis he would have noticed someone was literally living in his store.
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Things get complicated when Jeffrey sees this woman Lee who works at the Toys R Us, Kirsten Dunst plays her and she has got two daughters and just got out of a bad relationship with some asshole also named Jeff, Jeffrey starts obsessing over her because he is listening to everyones conversations on baby monitors like a total creep. He finds out she is organizing a toy drive at her church so he shows up there and they start dating, this is where the movie gets emotionally heavy because you know this whole thing is built on lies but they actually have great chemistry together, Tatum and Dunst are really good in these scenes and you cannot help rooting for them even though you know its gonna end badly. Jeffrey makes up this whole identity as John Zorn and tells everyone he is a secret federal agent which is the dumbest cover story ever, just writing this and Im still laughing because its so stupid, one of the women at this singles brunch even points out she did not know there was an intelligence branch in Charlotte and he just stumbles through it, Lee buys all his bullshit somehow which makes no sense. He tells her he lives in a secret federal building so she cannot come pick him up and she is just like okay sure that makes sense, she even lets this man around her kids when she knows absolutely nothing about him, her oldest daughter is suspicious at first but he wins her over by buying her a car because she does not want to drive her moms stick shift, that whole test drive scene where he is racing the car like its Fast and Furious with the daughters in the back is wild, I get he was trying to loosen everyone up but damn dude. The romance stuff takes over a lot of the movie and I wish they had focused more on the actual survival and heist aspect of it, the hasle and hoops and stuff about living in a retail space for six months is way more fascinating than watching him fall in love, do not get me wrong the emotional scenes work because Tatum and Dunst are both really good actors. That last scene between them is very sad and Dunst does such a great job but the whole time you are watching you realize how much damage he is doing to everyone around him, he is not a bad person necessarily but he is making terrible choices that hurt people who do not deserve it. His baby mama cut him off completely after he got arrested the first time which seemed cold at first, but when you think about it his daughter had to watch her dad get arrested on her birthday right after he finally got her the bike she wanted, that bike is tainted now, its not a pure gift from her dad its the thing that sent him to jail, same thing with Lees family, he comes into their lives and gives them this false hope and gets close to the kids knowing the whole thing is gonna blow up eventually, what kind of person does that, the oldest daughter even asks why this big goofy dude is around every day and its a fair question.
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The thing about this movie si that Roofman never feels like its fighting with itself tonally, one minute you are laughing at something ridiculous like Jeffrey running around the Toys R Us literally doing as he wants, the next minute you feel heavy because you remember this balloon of lies is about to pop and take everyone down with it, you literally feel guilt and ashame for him that it becomes so tense every time he is telling lies. Derek Cianfrance directed thi movie and he does a good job balancing the comedy and drama without making it feel cheap or forced, the movie lets you have fun but it also keeps reminding you that Jeffrey is a menace who probably deserve to go to jail to learn one or two leasons to be honest. The supporting cast is solid too, Laith Stanfield plays Jeffreys army buddy Steve and he is great in the scenes he gets, he tries to help Jeffrey escape the country but Jeffrey screws it up by going back to see Lee on Christmas, Ben Mendelsohn shows up as this pastor at Lees church and he is so funny too with his whole look, I wish he had been in more of the movie because every scene with him was gold. Juno Temple is also in it briefly as Steves girlfriend and she is always good, the whole cast elevates the material even when the script is romanticizing stuff that probably should not be romanticized, like the movie wants you to think Jeffreys charming but it also shows you he is destroying peoples lives. The ending is brutal, Jeffrey needs 50000 dollars for a new identity so he tries to rob more places and it goes wrong every single time, he falls through the roof of a massage parlor instead of the pawn shop and its hilarious watching him crash around, for someone who has broken into over 40 places you think he would be better at falling but he just slams into everything. The massage parlor had bulletproof windows for some reason which makes no sense, then he blows up a dentist office to get rid of his dental records and the movie tries to play it off like whoopsie but its like no dude you just destroyed that womans whole business, the dentist was already annoyed with him for having 14 cavities from eating nothing but MMs. On Christmas Day he is supposed to leave the country but Lee calls him saying the girls miss him and you can tell its a setup at least thats how I got it from the very first moment like how convenient it was, anyone with half a brain would know its a trap but Jeffrey shows up anyway with balloons and flowers and gets arrested immediately, like come on do you even believe in coincidence??, the movie makes it clear Lee turned him in which makes sense, she finally figured out whats going on and did what she had to do to protect her kids.
At the end they show clips of the real people and its wild, all the employees he robbed are like yeah he was really nice which is crazy to hear, the real Jeffrey Manchester looks nothing like Channing Tatum, he is more like a regular white dude who looks kinda rough, they show he has tried to escape prison two more times since getting caught again and he is eligible for parole in 2036. The text says he works as a prison librarian now and promises he will not try to escape again but after everything this movie shows I think its just hard to believe this guy is a menace in disguise, there is a scene towards the end where Jeffrey says he is exactly where he needs to be and he deserves to be in prison for hurting people, it felt like real emotional growth from someone who lacked any kind of emotional intelligence the whole movie but the end credits reveal he tried to escape prison two more times in 2009 and 2017 which shows that acceptance speech was probably bullshit. Overall Roofman is entertaining as it is hilarious and Tatum gives probably his best performance, he is charming and funny but also does the heavy dramatic stuff really well, Kirsten Dunst is fantastic too and their chemistry makes the whole thing work even when the choices do not make sense, its one of those movies where you have fun watching it but afterwards you think about all the problematic elements and it complicates how you feel about everything. I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would even though the main character frustrated the hell out of me with every decision he made, if you like character driven movies with weird true stories this is worth checking out, just do not expect a straightforward heist comedy because its got more emotional weight to it than the trailers let on, 8 out of 10 for me.
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