Tatum charms as a lovable rogue in poignant true tale

Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst are a match made in crime comedy heaven in Roofman’, says Clarisse Loughrey, while Keanu Reeves rescues slight comedy Good Fortune’

- By Clarisse Loughrey

★★★★☆

When you need someone to play a criminal who’s easy to forgive, you call up Channing Tatum. He’s the big kid with the big soul, whose six-pack and close shave play in direct contrast to his dancer’s grace. You'll see him bounce around like a lemur, but always with that little twinkle in his eye that says, “don’t break my heart, please. I’m fragile”.

He’s one reason Roofman works as well as it does. The second is his onscreen romantic partner, Kirsten Dunst, who’s forever honest and unadorned in her work, in a way that ensures her character here never feels like a mother substitute, or the saint who dares put up with all this. We’re simply watching two people who like each other very much, barrelling towards a titanium wall obstacle.

The problem is, Leigh’s (Dunst) new boyfriend, “John Zorn” (Tatum), is actually Jeffrey Manchester, recently self-liberated from the prison where he was being held for robbing 45 McDonald’s branches by sawing holes in their roofs and holding tight until the time of the Monday morning cash handover. Jeffrey is a true gentleman thief who, when ushering employees into the walk-in fridge at gunpoint, ensures they’ve all got their coats on. Or, if one of them forgets theirs, he gives them his own.

Manchester is a real person. Interview snippets played over the credits attest to the idea that he may have really been, as the film argues, “a nice guy” who “made some bad choices”. Roofman can’t help but salivate over the quirkier details of his escapades, especially his choice to hide, post-prison escape, in a Toys R Us store — inevitably, it leads to images of Tatum pulling a Risky Business in a pair of Heelys; sheepishly confessing to a dentist that his four cavities were caused by excessive exposure to candy; and clambering, lathered and butt-naked, up the side of a bike display after a store manager (Peter Dinklage) catches him washing in the men’s bathroom. But