“I’m not a bad guy. I just made bad choices. I have a plan.”
Derek Cianfrance doesn’t have a lot of movies in the director’s chair, but his 2012 The Place Beyond The Pines was a pretty solid film. Since then he’s been pretty quiet, and he’s finally surfaced once again with the rather off-kilter “based on a true story” crime comic drama Roofman. He’s brought Channing Tatum, Kirsten Dunst, and Peter Dinklage along for the ride. It’s been something of a sleeper, coming with little advanced buzz and flying under the radar. It was a pretty good hit at the box office, and now Paramount has released the film on UHD-Blu-ray in 4K.
Jeffrey Manchester (Tatum) was an Army Ranger, so he has a specific set of skills that served him well while he was serving his country. Then one day it was all over, and he found it tougher than he expected to take care of his wife and daughter. His fellow retired Ranger, Steve (Stanfield) has been making his living outside the law by forging identification documents. Steve points out his gift for detail and seeing what others can’t see and says he should find a way to use those skills, and that’s exactly what he does. He notices patterns, and there was a huge one he could exploit at your neighborhood McDonald’s. He discovered when they all made their cash pick-ups and how all of them followed the same routine, and he took advantage of it. He would climb on the roof and make a hole to get into the building without setting off any alarms. When the morning crew arrived, he would politely relieve them of their money and lock them in the freezer, but not without a smile and even his coat if someone forgot their own that day, as well as calling the police so they wouldn’t be in there long. He decided he needed to hit 45 jobs to get what he needed for his family. Of course, he couldn’t help lavishing them with great gifts; after all, it was his daughter’s birthday party and his lack of a gift that started the whole thing. All of that likely brings attention, and on his daughter’s next party, the cops come rolling in to arrest him. He is sentenced to over 40 years in prison.
That could have been the end of the story. But when his daughter tells him about mommy’s special friend, he decides to break out. Once again his eye for detail and patterns gives him the way out. Because he’s very “hot”, Steve won’t help him until he hides out a while. So he breaks into a Toys R Us store and creates a little home away from home inside the store. He patches in monitors and watches the staff in the everyday life. He ventures out into life and donates stolen toys to a church toy drive for single mom/Toys R Us employee Leigh (Dunst). He gets pretty close and starts to shower them with gifts and “help” by selling stolen video games from the store. The heat catches up when store manager Mitch (Dinklage) shows up early one morning while he’s washing up in the bathroom. He makes it look like he ran away while going to his hiding place. But the heat is on now, and he realizes he stayed too long. When Steve demands 50 grand to set him up with papers, he has to perform a job at the Toys R Us after fixing it so Leigh won’t be working that day. He just pulls it off with a few complications and now faces a choice: run right now or see Leigh one more time.
You can guess where it goes from there. I’m not a huge Dunst fan. I thought she was really bad in her Spider-Man films, and it doesn’t help that we’re reminded of that role here. Jeffrey ends up with a lot of Spider-Man merch in case we forgot. She’s not great here, but she doesn’t have to be. Tatum is going to do the heavy lifting, and all she has to do is act ignorant. She’s got that role down pat. No real chemistry here, and that is a shame. Tatum has better chemistry with her daughter, who never really trusts him. But it works well enough here. A bigger disappointment is Peter Dinklage. The true crime here is how underused he is. If you watched the trailer, you saw both of his best moments. Most of the rest is from a black & white monitor where Jeffrey treats the employees like his favorite prime-time television show.
Video
Roofman is presented in a slightly modified aspect ratio of 2.40:1. The ultra-high-definition 2160p image is arrived at by an HEVC codec with an average bitrate of 60 mbps. The movie was shot on film and so is native 4K. I like that the choice here was to make it feel a bit dated and add the organic atmosphere that only film can bring. The use of a 4K digital intermediate also helps to retain everything the original style and intent delivered. The grain remains. Dolby Vision/HDR doesn’t bring a lot of color pop with the exception of the Toys R Us store. Most of the film goes for somewhat muted and realistic color, while the inside of the store is like another world. Here’s where you find vivid colors and textures, from the bright blue interior paint to the vintage toys on the shelves. Contrast is quite nicely realized, and black levels bring plenty of fine shadow definition.
Audio
The Dolby True-HD 5.1 track is a slight disappointment here. From such a recent release you almost expect Dolby Atmos sound, but the disappointment isn’t as big as all of that. The focus here is really the dialog and the rather intimate moments of the film, and they are served well. You won’t really miss the bigger subs here, although the depth would have been nice. The score is also subtle. The church singing stands out fine, and you don’t need so much surround ear candy here, so the audio presentation is serviceable.
Special Features
The extras are found on both the UHD and HD Blu-ray copies of the film.
Based On Actual Events And Terrible Decisions: (13:49) This feature explores the origins of the film. Director Cianfrance started to have several phone conversations with the real Jewffrey Manchester for 4 years. The film itself took years to fully come together. You get an appreciation for that process here, for sure.
Chasing The Ghosts – The Director’s Method: (11:36) There are two things going on here. Part of it is a cast and crew love-fest for Cianfrance but this one goes beyond just the kind words. Plenty of behind the scenes footage allows us to experience his style. We also get to see the real-life folks who had cameos in the film. The truck driver who unknowingly drove Jeffrey out of the prison plays himself as do some of the police officers. It’s a pretty compelling feature that is worth the look even if you don’t take the time for all of the extras.
A Good Place To Hide: (9:22) I still remember Toys R Us and I couldn’t help but be amazed that they reproduced one so faithfully. The chain has been gone for nearly a decade. They found an old Toys R Us building but it was completely gutted. They built it back to it’s original appearance. It was so convincing they had to put up signs that they were not conducting business because people would drive up to shop. That’s pretty cool and you get to see all of the steps from really gutted building to a real Toys R Us store.
Driving Lessons: (1:29) As part of the actor bonding process Cianfrance and actress Lily Collias who plays her teenage daughter played a prank on Dunst. They asked her to give the actress driving lessons but she already knew how to drive but pretended to be awkward while Dunst tried to give her lessons. You see some of it and it must have been a blast.
Choir Practice: (1:20) A table read rehearsal for the church choir singing the No Room song.
Deleted/Alternate Scenes: (8:27) There are 7 with a play all option.
Final Thoughts:
The story is clever and the film is paced nicely. I thought the 2-hour running time might feel padded and there are certainly moments it does. But it’s not near as bad as all of that and moves well enough that time goes quickly enough. The film feels highly serialized and I thought it might have done better as a limited stream series. It’s compact in the settings and doesn’t take too many chances outside of the twisting plans of a crook who really is a pretty nice guy. The film could have some staying power and who knows. When Halloween hits us “The Roofman may still be in the area”.
