Derek Cianfrance’s Roofman.
It’s a comedy, drama. You can rent it on Amazon.
Want recommendations without the commentary? Don’t scroll.
Don’t like this week’s pick? Browse the archives.
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Each week, Drew creates a watchlist with film recommendations provided by you.
Celebrate last week’s winner.
Becky U. and Jacob N. won bad dad movies with their submission, The Empire Strikes Back, and therefore have earned one ticket in the lottery for our annual mystery prize.
Check out the heist movies watchlist and don’t forget to vote on your favorite entries.
The category is: movies with the best drug trip scenes. Submit a movie for a chance to win our annual mystery prize.*
* The Footnote Chronicles: Day 82.
The footnote seems to have disappeared.
What it is.
A spoiler-free description of the movie.
A charismatic criminal hides out in a toy store.
If you like these things, then you’ll like the film.
→ Crowdpleasers. There’s something pleasant about kicking back with a lighthearted film in the year 2026. So what if it’s caked in Hollywood varnish so much so that the real story, you surmise, couldn’t possibly be this clean? Stop being a bummer and eat some popcorn.
→ Nostalgia. Tickle-Me-Elmo. Blockbuster. Flip phones. Toys “R” Us. It’s all there and it is an absolute feast for millennials.
→ Romance, etc. Roofman is a romantic film but in it are also elements of dark comedy and (bloodless) crime, and Channing Tatum highlights in his character, Jeffrey, the spirit of a hopeful golden retriever (who also so happens to be a armed robbery tactician).
I wanted to roll my eyes at Derek Cianfrance’s Roofman, but I couldn’t because the based-on-a-true story was too compelling and the cast too charming, so much so that I felt helplessly endeared to the whole thing.
Was Channing Tatum’s Jeffrey a little too clean cut and charming and cool under pressure, given he’d been to war and also was on the run for a string of armed robberies? Maybe. Could we have gotten a grittier version of this film with a little less gloss and a little more Channing Tatum waking up screaming with night terrors from the war? Sure. But maybe the world is gritty enough as it is, and it’s okay to have your movie criminals handsome and charming enough to reduce a room full of single, God-fearing women (including Kirsten Dunst) to a giggling, communal drool.
The story never drags, and it’s just about the furthest thing from self-indulgent filmmaking, which perhaps is the thing Roofman has going for it most of all. Roofman was made to be liked, and if you’re the kind of person who can lose yourself in a film without overthinking it, you’ll have fun with it.
A fact or two about the production that makes you say “oh, neat.”
→ The production team rebuilt a defunct Toys “R” Us from scratch. Writer-director Derek Cianfrance: “I didn’t want to shoot it on a stage – we actually built a Toys “R” Us. We found an old one and built it from the ground up, one tile at a time, and brought it back to its former glory.”
→ Real people from the 2004 case appear as themselves in the film. The truck driver, arresting officer, pastor, and swat officer each play themselves. Even Leigh, the woman Manchester dated while he was hiding, was featured as a crossing guard in the film, and helped inform Kirsten Dunst’s character.
Thoughts completely unrelated to this week’s film.
BOTTLE EPISODE #3: THE TRAIN.
A man boarded the train and sat down and immediately turned blueish. The woman in the seat beside him was already blueish and she barely noticed he sat down. The woman’s kid sat next to her and the kid noticed that she too had turned blueish, and mostly was jealous because it seemed to him that being blueish was desirable, since she made herself turn blueish so often.
No one spoke to anyone else on the train, and toward the front of it there was a homeless man taking a shit on the floor. The kid tugged at his mother’s sleeve to tell her that the homeless man was pooping and, without looking up, his mother said that homeless isn’t a kind word, and actually that the kid should say that the man who is experiencing homelessness is pooping. The train sped along the tracks and positively smelled like shit.
See you next week!
Blake
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