Roofman Review
Last night I was able to see Cinemark’s Secret Movie Screening and it was Roofman starring Channing Tatum, Kirsten Dunst, and more familiar faces. This is one that I was curious to check out because the trailers looked fun, but the buzz coming out of the film festivals was very positive. I was able to see this film last night.
The Good
I’ll cut right to the chase, I had an absolute blast watching Roofman and it’s one of the most fun movies I’ve watched this year. One of the big words I saw on Twitter coming out of the film festivals was “crowd pleaser” and “fun”. Those are absolutely perfect words used to describe this film. The theater I was in was almost sold out and from beginning to end my theater was enjoying themselves and laughing out loud. I didn’t talk with anybody directly after the film, but as we were leaving the theater everybody seemed to be praising the film and had nothing but very positive things to say about it. There’s many different reasons why the film works and is fun but the main one is that it’s based on this wild true story about a guy who robs 45 McDonald’s, goes to prison, escapes prison, then lives in a Toys R Us for 6 months. That’s the basically set up for the film and you get all of the hijinks and shenanigans that comes with that. The film plays all of that out very well, where you get Channing Tatum at Toys R Us doing crazy things, you get comedy, and you get some heart. Everything that you want from a crowd pleaser, this film delivers and I think it’s going to be a film that people are going to have a lot of fun with this weekend.
Probably the biggest surprise of the film was how much heart the film has. The film was marketed as Channing Tatum doing crazy things at Toys R Us with a little bit of romance with Kirsten Dunst’s character. That’s what the movie is, except it’s more focused on the romance and him being a good person rather than adventures at Toys R Us. There’s multiple moments in the film that made my audience go “awe” and it’s the element that surprised me most about the film. What makes Tatum’s character so compelling is that he’s just a good guy. His character arc in the film isn’t him going from a bad person to a good person but rather trying to find a normal life. He’s a good person that’s changing the lives of people around him and it makes him this very charming and compelling lead. Whenever his hostages are asked about him they all say “he was very polite about the way he handled things”. Seeing this good guy making a difference in people’s lives while his personal life isn’t the best brings out a lot of emotions. The key example is with the dynamic between Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst’s family. Dunst’s family is going through a divorce and the film explores how a divorce can shape family dynamics. As somebody who has divorced parents and has step-parents I can relate to some of the emotional moments of the film more so then I think other people can.
So much of why the film is so much fun and why it has heart is because the cast of the film is so much. Tatum is our lead in the film and he’s great and this is probably his best performance that I’ve seen from him. It’s this very interesting performance because he’s having to play three different characters, the family man, the thief, and the prisoner but in all versions of the character he’s played so charming, you root for him. The performance requires this charming movie star in the lead and he’s able to do that. He’s able to be dramatic, vulnerable, and emotional at points. He carries a lot of the emotional weight of the film and he’s able to do a lot in this film. The film doesn’t really have an antagonist, but Peter Dinklage’s character is designed to be something you don’t like. He’s played villains and unlikable characters in the past, but here he gets to have fun while doing it. There’s some moments with him with his reactions to things that had my audience laughing out loud. The surprise one and one that I didn’t realize was in the film was Ben Mendelsohn. He’s one of my favorite character actors of the last 15 years. He normally plays this very straight serious character from The Dark Knight Rises to Rogue One to Captain Marvel. Here he’s doing the complete opposite of his normal thing. He plays this fun pastor and he’s more charismatic then he normally is. Everybody in here is a lot of fun, you also have Kristen Dunst and Lakeith Stanfield in here.
I’ve alluded to this throughout the review but the film is really funny. This might be the most I’ve laughed at a movie this year. The jokes in the film start within the first minute of the film and it never lets up until the credits roll. There’s so many great one liners and character dynamics that put a smile on your face. It’s not like Tatum gets all of the jokes, everybody in here gets a couple of jokes that are really funny. In the trailer it shows this sequence of Peter Dinklage seeing Tatum at the store and the sequence is so hilarious because of the physical comedy from Tatum and Dinklage’s reaction makes it better. There’s another sequence with a car in the back half of the film that had my audience dying of laughter.
Finally, I found the look of the film to be very cool and unique. What I mean by that is the film takes place in the late ‘90s, early 2000s and it looks like it was released during that time period. The director of the film Derek Cianfrance said that was a creative choice to make the film feel like it was from the past. I don’t know of very many films using this technique to date a film but I thought it worked really well and it added something to the film. It made the film feel a bit more unique and is one of the many elements of the film that made the film better than I think it easily could’ve been.
The Bad
This is a film that I really dug, so these aren’t issues that really hurt the film for me. First up, the film is rated-R and I don’t think it needed to be rated-R. The R-rating felt like a distraction and not a requirement. There’s obviously a sequence where Tatum is naked that’s a stand out sequence. But there’s other sequences that are romantic and steamy, you see a breast, and there’s a lot of language in the film that makes it R-rated but none of it I thought actually added to the film. You can remove those sequences from the film and it wouldn’t change. I think the R-rating actually works against the film because it means that it’s not for all ages when I think it easily could’ve been. I found it to be a very strange choice to make it rated-R when the film probably would’ve made more money if it was PG-13.
Also, I touched on this earlier but the film’s marketing was a bit misleading. The film was marketed as “Channing Tatum does all of this crazy stuff in Toys R Us.” That’s absolutely a major part of the film. But all of the shenanigans you see Tatum do in the film was shown in the trailer. There’s very few scenes of Tatum in the store that aren’t shown in the trailer, that’s unfortunate and I think took away some of the shock value of the sequences. In a sense, I felt like all of the best bits, all of the funniest bits were ruined by the trailer. The sequences still work in the film, they’re still really funny but I wish they held some of the crazier situations from the trailers and had them be a surprise in the film.
Final Thoughts: Roofman is an absolute crowd pleaser and a film that’s 100% worth your time. This is one of the most fun experiences I’ve had at the theater and it’s a film that works so well when seeing it on the big screen with an audience. Channing Tatum delivers a career best performance with his playing this charming thief that has a personal and sensitive side to him. This film’s opening weekend is tracking to be a bit low, I hope the positive word of mouth makes this film have a strong opening.
The Score: 9.0/10 (A-)
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