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It's one thing to get away with robbing a business once, twice, maybe even three times.
It's another to successfully hit dozens of fast food restaurants before finally getting caught.
And then to manage an escape from prison and hide out in a Toys R Us for months without anyone noticing.
Wow.
This all probably sounds too wacky to be true, but it's the plot of the new movie Roof Man, which is more or less based on real events.
Channing Tatum plays the exceptionally savvy robber, and you probably won't be surprised to know that he oozes that signature charm even when we're inclined to root against him.
I'm Ayesha Harris, and today we're talking about Ruth Mann on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.
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Join me today is fellow co-host Linda Holmes.
Hello, Linda.
Hello, Aisha.
Also with us is one of the hosts of NPR's Code Switch podcast, Jean Demby.
Hey, Jean.
Welcome back.
What's good, Aisha?
Hey, Linda.
Hey.
Yeah, it's great to have you both here.
I feel like this is going to be a very fun conversation.
So Roof Man stars Channing Tatum as Jeffrey Manchester, a military vet who's fallen on hard times and is struggling to support his family.
He turns to robbing fast food joints, many of them McDonald's, by drilling and entering through the rooftops.
Eventually, he gets caught and sent to prison with a 45-year sentence.
But he's able to escape and hides out in a Toys R Us for several months undetected.
He sinks out of the store sometimes and winds up striking a relationship on the outside with an unsuspecting single mom who also happens to be a Toys R Us employee.
She's Leigh, and she's played by Kirsten Dunst.
Obviously he can only survive on MMs and keep up the ruse for so long before the roof comes crashing down on him.
Roof Man is in theaters now.
Linda, this is actually one of the first movies we've ever had a chance to sit next to each other and enjoy together.
It's true.
So how are we feeling about this one?
I liked this movie.
I think...
It's pretty light in the sense that it runs largely on the charisma of Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst.
Also I would say Peter Dinklage, who plays one of the other Toys R Us employees, who I think is very funny in this movie.
Thinking about this guy.
One of the things about him is that he kind of gets the benefit of being referred to as like a very polite and gentlemanly robber.
And there's this idea that they build a lot of sympathy for him over the course of this story.
And I do think it's interesting to think like who gets the benefit of that kind of criminal story, like the charming criminal story?
Obviously, it's one thing if you're Channing Tatum, and it's probably another thing if you're not.
So I think that it's intentional the way the movie kind of asks you to interrogate your feelings about that right up until the very last screens where they're going through, like what eventually happens to him after the run of the film.
Yes.
Yes.
Like America running on Duncan, this movie absolutely runs on Channing Tatum.
Yeah.
That is a very, very intentional casting point.
And I agree with you, Linda, very much so.
Gene.
How do we feel about Roof Man?
I liked it.
I mean, you know, it's like a little bit of a trifle.
It's not like a lot of weight to the movie but, like you both said, like Kirsten Dunst, Channing Tatum, like if it runs on their firepower, like the sort of chemistry, and they're just like screen presence.
That's a lot of firepower to pull from, you know?
The movie really, really works when they're on screen together.
I did think the movie did a really good job of this character is like really good at improvising his way out of problems, but not very good at like bro, what is your end game here?
Like this is not a sustainable course of action.
And the movie does a really good job of like putting him in situations where he makes nakedly to us non-criminals.
I'm assuming we're non-criminals, right.
Why are you taking this photo right now?
Like, you know what I mean?
Sometimes literally nakedly, by the way.
Sometimes literally nakedly, by the way.
We should also get back to like the Channing Tatum, like the physicality of him.
There's something about him that is very like Patrick Swayze-like.
You know what I mean?
Yes, absolutely.
There's a scene in which he's escaping from prison and which he is trying to sneak out behind this truck.
And he moves around this truck in a way that's like, bro, you don't need to pair wet like that.
He moves around the back of the truck in a way that's so graceful.
It's Magic Mike, G.
I was like, oh, that was a very sort of like cat-like, dancer-like thing.
He's just very fun to watch move.
But yeah, the movie itself is like, it's perfectly fine.
It's perfectly fine.
Yeah.
Did you all in school?
Did you ever have to read that book from the mixed up files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler?
Frankweiler, yeah.
Do you remember that?
Okay, so I have not read that book since I was a child and I don't really remember that much of it.
But the plot of that is like these two kids run away from home and then they like hide out in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
You're a kid, you're reading this book and it's like fun to see how they are able to like, keep their presence there and have no one suspect for a very long time.
And that is what I enjoyed the most about this movie was like sometimes this felt like Mission Impossible or like Ocean's Eleven, where you're like how is he going to figure out a way to stay undetected in this Toys R Us?
He has like baby monitor set up around the building so he can see when people are coming and going.
He's basically camped out in the middle of this giant structure.
He's squatting basically.
And it's really fun to see how he does that.
And this movie, it kind of gives you everything.
If you're a Channing Tatum fan, like you, have a moment where he's dancing in Healy sneakers and tight white shorts tight white shorts, tight white shorts and a pink inflatable tube.
Like, and at one point he's even, as Linda's hinted, he's completely nude, naked.
So it gives you the things that you want.
It also gives you a reference to Tickle Me Elmo and like, It's just very fun.
But then when it comes to the end and actually like sort of the last act and it asks you to question these things, it felt like it was trying to have its cake and eat it too.
And we should say that, like Jeffrey Manchester, he's still alive and he was like consulted to some extent in the process of making this movie.
And so you have to also wonder how hard were they willing to go when you have the actual subject sort of like complicit in many ways and telling their own story.
That's where I kind of struggle and where like, the trifle of it all comes in, where I'm just like I don't know man.
The way it ends, I was like, really?
He hurt a lot of people.
Well, that's the thing.
I think there's a very like the gentleman robber thing here.
And in the trailer, you even see the stuff where like before he puts people in the cooler room.
He gives one of them his coat, which I think is a real story that supposedly he did.
But nevertheless, this is somebody who, over and over and over again, surprised people, held them at gunpoint, locked them up.
Traumatizing.
It's very traumatizing.
It's exactly what I was going to say.
No matter how much they may say on the news later, like, he was actually very polite.
He was a nice guy.
Yeah.
That is something that he chose to do over and over and over and over and over again.
And as he is living at the Toys R Us, what he's doing sort of evolves, right?
Because at the beginning, he's just trying to survive and not get caught.
He is finding a place to stay.
He has nothing to eat, so he's stealing M&Ms.
But as it evolves, and after he meets Kirsten Dunst, you move into a period where he is stealing large numbers of video game discs and then just going and selling them for cash to buy things for her or to do things for her to impress her.
Now you're getting into a different area.
Now you're stealing much the way most people steal, which is to get something that they want and that they don't have the money for.
And so to me, this was directed by Derek Cianfrance, who made Blue Valentine.
If you've seen Blue Valentine, this is not what I would expect from the director of Blue Valentine.
But I do think he has an appreciation of kind of sadness at the heart of people.
And so I do think you're supposed to understand the sadness at the heart of this guy and ultimately, the sadness of this story for the Kirsten Dunst character.
I think it's worth thinking about.
If he were not a very handsome white, tall dude, would he get the benefit of this narrative about being a gentleman?
You're supposed to interrogate this story, maybe a little bit more than they're making explicit enough.
I guess.
Right.
I should also say like it's nice to see Lakeith Stanfield, even though I don't see him in nearly enough starring roles.
Whenever he pops up in a sidekick role, he plays Channing Tatum's character as like one of his good friends.
And he kind of inadvertently gives him the idea to start doing all of these things and robbing places, but he doesn't tell him to.
He's just like, you're the smartest dumb person I know.
Like, why aren't you making more money?
It's like, it's not like Channing Tatum and his family are starving and like living on the streets.
It's just that he feels bad that he can't give his young daughter the birthday party that she wants and the gifts that she wants.
And it's like, look, I'm not a parent.
Gene, you are.
But, like, of course you want to give your kid everything.
But also— Would you hold up a McDonald's for it?
Yeah.
And multiple McDonald's.
And even if he was not actually physically harming these people—
I don't think it's a spoiler to say like in the last act it does take a turn where he goes further than he usually does.
But even if that didn't happen and he was only sort of mentally traumatizing these people, he's mentally traumatizing people.
Kirsten Dunst's character and her young daughters, you know?
So it's like in order for this movie to have more bite, I think it really needed to sit with the mental toll that it takes.
And even on his daughter, who he doesn't get a chance to actually see, like his actual daughter.
Mm-hmm.
I just wish it kind of lingered on those things more.
And this movie just isn't really willing to go there.
And that's, you know, a shame, I think.
There's also sort of a throwaway mention earlier in the movie about the fact that you know he was in the military and he had like he had a specific set of skills which is the key sample.
So, like the reason you were sent to all these like places, it's not because you're necessarily the best marksman.
It's because you, like, notice things.
You're observant.
Because you're, like, a very observant person.
What does somebody like that who probably can't transition into...
Like any sort of other workplaces do to like get by.
And I thought there was something in there that was worth sort of pulling out a little bit more.
Like what do you do with people who are sort of like you've trained up in this way.
And now that they've outlived their usefulness in that way, what happens to them next after that?
With a movie like this, it's always less interesting to me to sit with the idea of like do you judge this person or do you not judge this person right?
Especially a real human being from a real story.
Like I always think it's more interesting to think about where does this guy's story fit into?
Like Aisha said, ideas about the American dream, ideas about criminals, ideas about Jesse James.
Bonnie and Clyde. gentleman criminals or criminals who steal from the right people.
Because to me it's a lot easier to be sort of taken aback by the fact that he's herding people into a cooler at gunpoint than it is to be affronted by him stealing from McDonald's.
That's not really the issue to me.
I do wish that the Kirsten Dunst character... had had a little bit more to do.
I think they're not sure what to do with her, other than make sure you understand that he genuinely cares about her and she genuinely cares about him.
And that, you know, it's one of those things where like, in a different world, maybe.
But you don't follow her for a tremendously long time after, kind of the end of this segment of his life.
I wish she had had a little more to do because I do think she's terrific.
But at the same time, I mean, I want to be clear.
I think this movie is really entertaining.
I would watch Channing Tatum in many caper type movies.
I love this for him.
Him and Kirsten have really great chemistry.
And even the whole time, I'm just like, Run, girl, run.
Get out of there.
Yeah, but you know she's not going to.
Like, there is a great scene where he's at a Red Lobster with a bunch of women.
Oh, yeah.
That's a dope scene.
For once you have a scene where they actually reflect what would happen if you brought a guy who looked like Channing Tatum to a lunch with a bunch of normal people, where they would all be like what?
You know?
And I appreciated that touch to this film.
He seems slimmer here than he has looked in other movies.
He's obviously Channing Tatum.
He looks like a dancer.
He's supposed to be surviving on basically only M&Ms.
Candy, yeah.
He's surviving on M&Ms.
This is a very funny scene in which he has to go to the dentist because he's been surviving on MMs for months.
It's like, oh, you have 14 cavities.
That's a lot of cavities for an adult.
I think it's interesting to think about him when you say that he looks slightly slimmer here.
I think it's interesting to me anytime you see a male movie star whose body is as much – has as much of a role in his stardom as many actresses have over the course of Hollywood history.
That's right.
But there is something about, I think, the way that he deploys his body.
That is interesting to me as like a performance of gender, as a performance of masculinity.
That is not.
And I think I should have talked before about the Salma Hayek Pino scene in Magic Mike's Last Dance.
The way that over the course of his career.
You know, he's capitalized on that, I think is super interesting.
Absolutely.
I mean, the last time I was on PCHH, we were talking about the smashing machine.
It's a very different sort of use of physicality by Dwayne Johnson.
I'm sorry, not The Rock.
It's interesting to see the choices he's made about like his physicality versus like Dave Bautista or you know, all these people whose physicality is a central part of rock why they get cast in movies.
And Channing Tatum's just, the roles are kind of all over the place, you know what I'm saying?
Like, it's just, I'll try anything, you know?
Yeah.
And I really dig him in this kind of thing.
I think he's legitimately an interesting dude.
I think that kind of speaks to the uniqueness of Tatum in this current landscape where someone like The Rock, his physicality is based like on this very sort of hyper-masculine version of strength, whereas Channing Tatum's is very much more balletic, more Right light.
The strength is there, not necessarily to crash through doors and pick up giant missiles with his bare hands, but sometimes it's for lifting up a woman.
Escaping from prison.
That's what it's for.
And the other thing that I think they use just a touch of here, but not a ton Tatum is very very, very good at a tiny bit of hot doofus.
My favorite deployment of it is in The Lost City with Sandra Bullock, which I think is a terrific, underappreciated rom-com.
And there's a little bit of hot doofus to this guy.
Not a little bit.
He's very crafty, but he's also hot doofus.
That's the other element of the formula here.
I would say not a little bit of hot doofus, like a lot of hot doofus.
Some of the stuff he does, like the way he sort of like just lavishes Kirsten Dunst's family with like gifts or whatever.
It's like, bro, you are so ostentatious.
Like you're supposed to be laying low.
Yeah.
Why are you a tryhard?
He's doing all this stuff to draw attention to himself.
While he's like, I really want them to like me.
He's like, the thing you're supposed to be doing right now is like for people to forget you.
Especially when you look like him.
Right.
When you look like him.
Exactly.
Right.
Why are you being the hot guy she brought to lunch?
Like that's not a good idea.
A thousand percent.
His desire to be liked was, like, obviously going to be his Achilles heel.
Like, it was obviously going to be the thing that was going to get him nabbed at some point.
It was like, I understand, like, it's Kirsten Dunst, right?
But, like, you know, she's, like, super charming.
But what are you doing?
And that's a cousin of Hot Doobie.
Yeah, absolutely.
Again, this story seems too good to be true, but also I'm like, I guess I can see that happening.
We want to know what you think about Roofman today.
Do you like Channing Tatum as hot doofus as much as we do?
Because it's a fun time with the movies.
Find us on Facebook at Facebook.com slash PCHH and on Letterboxd at Letterboxd.com slash NPR Pop Culture.
We'll have a link to that in our episode description.
That brings us to the end of our show.
Jean Demby, Linda Holmes, thanks so much for being here.
As always, this is a blast.
Absolutely.
Good to see you.
I appreciate y'all so much.
Yeah.
And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio.
And you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor-free.
Please go find out more at plus.npr.org slash happy hour or visit the link in our show notes.
This episode was produced by Liz Metzger, Janae Morris and Mike Katzeff and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy.
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I'm Aisha Harris, and we'll see you all next time.
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