Jeffrey Manchester is a currently incarcerated American prisoner who pulled off dozens of armed robberies of branches of McDonalds in the late '90s and early 2000s before his initial capture. In 2004, Manchester escaped from prison and spent months hiding out in a Charlotte, North Carolina branch of Toys R Us. During his time in Charlotte, Manchester ingratiated himself to the local community, joining a church and even dating a local woman. He was eventually caught after his fingerprint was found on a DVD copy of Catch Me If You Can.
That real life detail is almost too on the nose, as Roofman, director Derek Cianfrance's dramatisation of Manchester's exploits, is a film that owes much to 2000s era Spielberg. Its plot plays like a mashup of Catch Me If You Can and The Terminal. It's the story of a charming and highly intelligent criminal who ends up being forced to make a home in an unconventional space. There are several parallels between Roofman's depiction of Manchester and Catch Me If You Can's portrayal of the infamous con artist Frank Abagnale Jr. Both men are super smart criminals who have a way of earning people's trust, and both Spielberg and Cianfrance suggest that for a fugitive, the greatest fear around capture is less about incarceration and more about never being able to see the people you love again.
Played by Channing Tatum in what might be the role of his life, Manchester, who assumes the alias "John", falls for an employee of the Toys R Us, Leigh (Kirsten Dunst), a fictional version of Manchester's real life lover Leigh Wainscott. Using a makeshift CCTV setup, "John" spies on Leigh and the other employees of the store and their bullying boss Mitch (Peter Dinklage). He takes a shine to Leigh from afar, even changing the store roster to ensure she gets the time off Mitch denies her. When John sneaks out to drop off some toys at the church Leigh attends, he finds himself drawn into the church's community and begins dating Leigh, using a fake story about doing secret government work.
Had this not actually happened for real, it might to difficult to believe that Leigh would fall for such an obviously fraudulent story, but I guess when someone as charming as Tatum is spinning it you give him the benefit of the doubt. Leigh instantly falls for John, and the feeling is mutual. But John knows that this romance can't last forever, that at some point he'll have to move on if he's to avoid capture.
Cianfrance's film works equally well as both a romance and a thriller. We want John and Leigh's relationship to succeed, and we want John to stay free. The two of course are interlinked, but we know the former considerably jeopardises the latter. Tatum and Dunst have a winning chemistry as two people who let their defences down and take a great risk in the name of love. They're the sort of couple you'd like to have over for dinner, and simply hanging out with them is a pleasure.
This makes the thriller aspect all the more effective, as we fear not just for John's safety but also the effect his capture will have on Leigh and her two daughters (Lily Collias, Kennedy Moyer), for whom he becomes a father figure. The final act, which sees John forced to become more reckless, is as tense as any more straightforward thriller of recent years. Cianfrance strikes a fine balance between crime caper and rom-com, with neither element distracting from the other.
The moral question of course is whether someone like Manchester deserves such a flattering portrayal. There's something uncomfortable about how the film depicts his crimes in such light-hearted fashion. This is a man who shoved a gun in the faces of defenceless workers, many of whom were young women, and likely caused a lot of trauma in his victims that some will no doubt still be struggling with today. If you can put such ethical discomfort out of your mind, Roofman is a disarming and endearing blend of two flavours that shouldn't taste this good.
Directed by: Derek Cianfrance
Starring: Channing Tatum, Kirsten Dunst, Peter Dinklage, Ben Mendelsohn, LaKeith Stanfield, Juno Temple
