Roofman: True crime writ lite

Roofman (2025) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity, nudity and sexual candor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.12.25

Truth genuinely is stranger than fiction.

 

When these events went down, back in 2005, one of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department sergeants told a reporter, “This would make a great movie.” (Check out this detailed recent article in The Charlotte Observer ... after you watch the movie.)

 

Having clandestinely invaded a Toys "R" Us store late one night, and ravenously hungry,
Jeff (Channing Tatum) tries to snatch some candy from an aisle display, mindful of
avoiding detection by the overhead roving security cameras.

He didn’t lie ... and now, two decades later, director Derek Cianfrance has made that film.

He and co-scripter Kirt Gunn boldly assert that “This is a true story.” Credit where due, their film follows the saga’s unbelievably outrageous details with a level of authenticity that’s rare in cinema today (allowing for a few speculative enhancements concerning details never revealed).

 

The wild ’n’ wooly result is anchored by an endearing, awkwardly charming and mildly foolish performance by Channing Tatum, note-perfect as a resourcefully clever guy who’s also a complete idiot.

 

Our first glimpse of Jeffrey Manchester (Tatum) shows him running hell-for-leather through a field, trying to evade we-don’t-yet-know-what, as Tatum’s voice-over explains that — in order to understand what’s happening — we need to back up a few years. Tatum continues to offer narrative commentary as events proceed (and the reason for this confessional also is a brilliant touch, when the film concludes).

 

As introduced properly, in 1998, Jeff is a despondent family man, separated from his wife (Melonie Diaz, as Talena), their 8-year-old daughter (Alissa Marie Pearson, adorable as Becky) and infant twin sons. He doesn’t earn enough to give Becky the bicycle she wants for her birthday, and his “instead of” gift is totally clueless.

 

He later laments the uncomfortable result with longtime best friend and former war buddy Steve (LaKeith Stanfield), who scoffs at Jeff’s inane get-rich-quick schemes, insisting that he play to his strength.

 

“You’re an observer,” Steve points out. “You don’t miss details.”

 

So Jeff observes that all McDonald’s franchises are built to identical specifications, down to where everything is located behind and in front of the order counter. He therefore hammers his way through the roof of one outlet, waits patiently in the restroom for the workers to arrive, and then — masked — orders them into the walk-in refrigerator at gunpoint, before emptying the vault. His manner is polite and cordial.

 

(The actual Manchester estimates that he pulled off between 40 and 60 such robberies throughout the United States.)

Palmer: A poignant ode to second chances

Palmer (2021) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, sexual content, brief nudity and violence

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.5.21

Films such as this one, are why I love my job.

 

Cheryl Guerriero’s sharply observed screenplay for this sweet character drama is matched by scrupulously persuasive performances throughout. That said, special mention must be made of stars Justin Timberlake — absolutely the finest, most heartfelt acting job he has turned in thus far — and newcomer Ryder Allen, all of 7 years old during production.

 

Attendance at Sunday morning church service is mandatory for anybody living with
Vivian (June Squibb, foreground right), which Palmer (Justin Timberlake, foreground
left) quickly learns. Young Sam (Ryder Allen), a semi-permanent house guest,
couldn't be happier.

Actor-turned-movie maker Fisher Stevens coaches superbly subtle work from both: a degree of directorial sensitivity that I never would have expected from his only two previous features: 2002’s Just a Kiss and 2012’s Stand Up Guys. Guerriero’s story is thoroughly engaging, but it’s also fun to sit back and watch all the little bits — the pauses, expressions and gestures — that make Timberlake and Allen’s characters so believable.

 

The premise is familiar, but — when the execution is this earnest — that’s no drawback.

 

Former high school football star Eddie Palmer (Timberlake), once a hometown hero who earned an athletic college scholarship, took a massively wrong turn and wound up serving 12 years in a state penitentiary. He did “good time”; he kept his nose clean and paid his debt to society.

 

The film opens as he returns to his small-town Louisiana roots, moving in with his grandmother Vivian (June Squibb), who raised him. The weather-beaten community feels time-locked; although smart phones and computers are present, they remain at the periphery. More than once, Palmer — as he prefers to be called — insists that he’s perfectly content with the rotary phone on the wall.

 

(Filming took place in Hammond — not too far from Baton Rouge and New Orleans — and production designer Happy Massee ensures that the ambiance is strongly mid-20th century Southern Americana.)

 

Palmer’s early efforts at “making the rounds” are acutely uncomfortable, Timberlake’s posture and gaze sliding between wariness and embarrassment. He’s greeted enthusiastically by old friends Daryl (Stephen Louis Grush) and Ned (Nicholas X. Parsons), both of whom are Obvious Bad News; we worry about this, although Palmer seems smart enough to steer clear.

 

His reception from another former friend, Coles (Jesse C. Boyd), is more guarded. Following in his father’s footsteps, Coles has become a cop; some sort of residual tension permeates this reunion, although Coles clearly is happy to see Palmer. The same can’t be said of Coles’ father (Dane Rhodes), the local top cop, who grimly expects to re-arrest Palmer in due course.

 

Wonder Wheel: Far from wonderful

Wonder Wheel (2017) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and sexuality
By Derrick Bang

Toward the conclusion of Woody Allen’s newest dive into the pool of mid-century nostalgia, Kate Winslet’s Ginny — having descended into full-blown Norma Desmond madness — responds to an accusation by petulantly whining, “Oh, God; spare me the bad drama.”

My feelings precisely.

As the summer progresses, Mickey (Justin Timberlake) begins to realize that Ginny
(Kate Winslet) is placing far too much emotional weight on their clandestine affair.

Wonder Wheel is Allen’s homage to shrill, over-the-top melodrama: a contrived piffle that seeks to outdo the likes of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Sunset Boulevard, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and their ilk. On top of which, the story is told by a character who — having informed us that he’s a budding poet and playwright given to florid exaggeration — clearly is an unreliable narrator.

Even allowing for all that, Allen’s film wallows in a swamp of soggy excess that surpasses the worst afternoon television soaps.

Which is a shame, because there’s much to recommend Wonder Wheel, starting with Vittorio Storaro’s gorgeous cinematography and Santa Loquasto’s impeccable period production design, which deliver a level of visual opulence rarely seen since Douglas Sirk’s lavish 1950s melodramas (Magnificent Obsession, Imitation of Life and others).

Even though all these characters recognize that their Coney Island home is past its prime, things still look terrific, in a fading-glory sort of way. The film takes its title from the massive Ferris wheel always standing vigil in the background, like a silent Greek chorus.

Ginny, pushing 40 and prone to migraines, works a dead-end job as a waitress in the Boardwalk clam shack. She’s married to Humpty (Jim Belushi), a recovering alcoholic who manages the merry-go-round in the amusement arcade. They live in a ramshackle apartment directly above the shooting gallery, the incessant pop-pop-pops frequently aggravating her debilitating headaches.

They bicker, snipe, squabble and quarrel in the manner of Ralph and Alice Kramden in The Honeymooners — also very 1950s — but with very little mitigating affection. It’s the second marriage for both, and we sense they’ve remained together mostly due to weary resignation.

They do a poor job of managing her bratty adolescent son, Richie (Jack Gore), a bad-seed monster and budding pyromaniac who loves setting fires below the wooden boardwalk. Everything concerning this little twerp seems to have migrated in from an entirely different film; his presence adds nothing to the core narrative, and his dangerous “hobby” is just sorta cast adrift during the third act ... rather sloppy, even for Allen.

Far from the Madding Crowd: Frequently maddening

Far from the Madding Crowd (2015) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, and needlessly, for mild sensuality and brief violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.15.15

This has been obvious for (literally) centuries, but it bears repeating: Thomas Hardy was no Jane Austen.

Although Bathsheba (Cary Mulligan) knows that Gabriel (Matthias Schoenaerts) loves her,
she's too independent and stubborn to acknowledge that she quite likely feels the same.
Sadly, such innocence in matters of the heart is about to make her vulnerable to another
potential suitor: one who's far less honorable.

Although Far from the Madding Crowd — his fourth novel, and the one that brought him fame — paints a lovingly descriptive portrait of the rolling, rugged countryside of 19th century Southwest England, with the inflexible class divide that we’ve come to expect from the period, Hardy fails utterly in his novel’s most important task: the creation of a sympathetic protagonist.

Director Thomas Vinterberg and star Carey Mulligan do their very best, in this newest film adaptation of Hardy’s novel. In appearance, spirit and resourcefulness, her handling of Bathsheba Everdene positively sparkles: an effervescent young woman who’d be the center of attention at any social gathering, warding off the advances of countless suitors.

Mulligan is adorable. Her radiant smile is granted additional intensity by a mischievous glint in her eyes, and her nose crinkles in a particularly endearing way when that smile blossoms into a delightful grin that hints at the promise of ... something.

But that’s the problem: Bathsheba is all coy suggestion, with no delivery. Her behavior is to be excused, in Hardy’s view, by her innocence; the parentless upbringing that fueled her pride and grit — and most particularly a determination to prove that a woman can go it alone, despite the era’s disparagement of single women — also left her clueless in kinder social graces such as diplomacy, tact and sensitivity.

By surface appearance, we can’t help admiring Bathsheba. By her actions ... well, that’s another matter indeed.

Part of the problem, of course, is the widening gap that separates our 21st century sensibilities from this novel’s 1874 publication date, with all that entailed. During the past 50 years in particular — since this book’s best-known 1967 adaptation by director John Schlesinger, with Julie Christie handling the title role — we’ve grown less tolerant of a 19th century male author’s clumsy attempt at a female protagonist, and far more impressed by Austen’s progressive 18th century creation of (to us) much more interesting heroines.