BURDEN OF ROOF

Opening this weekend:

Roofman--The story of Jeff Manchester, known as "Roofman," sounds like a tall tale. After serving in the U.S. Army, the California native robbed dozens of McDonalds restaurants, among other businesses, usually by cutting through the roof before opening time, politely and apologetically sticking up the arriving employees at gunpoint, locking them in the freezer, and looting the registers.

He was caught in North Carolina in 2000 and sentenced to 45 years in prison--his gentleman bandit routine cut no ice with the judge--but escaped in 2004. He then hid out inside a Toys "R" Us in Charlotte, subsisting on Peanut M&Ms and baby food, for around half a year.

But even that isn't the most astounding part of the story. During his Toys "R" Us residency Manchester, calling himself "John Zorn," slipped out into the community. He started attending a Presbyterian Church, dating a local single mother with two daughters, and generally acting like he was putting down roots.

The title role in this new film about Manchester's exploits seems tailor made for Channing Tatum. At one point in this film a cop remarks that Manchester is extremely smart, probably genius level, but "also an idiot." Few contemporary stars seem better equipped to get across that combination of resourceful ingenuity with extravagantly imbecilic recklessness, or of sweet, guileless, well-intentioned decency with dangerous obtuseness.

Most of Tatum's costars seem shrewdly cast to come across as sharp and intelligent by contrast to Manchester: Kirsten Dunst as Leigh, the Toys "R" Us employee to whom he takes a shine; Peter Dinklage as Mitch, the store's snide, toxic manager; LaKeith Stanfield as Manchester's shady old army buddy and Lily Collias as Leigh's elder daughter all seem, if they don't always act, dauntingly smart and perceptive. The faithful, led by Ben Mendelsohn as the pastor and Uzo Aduba as his wife, amusingly show us the seductive aggression with which a new face in church, especially a young single man, may be greeted. 

Directed by Derek Cianfrance from a script he wrote with Kirt Gunn, the movie unfolds in an America in which many of us live--fast food restaurants and chain stores and apartment buildings--but which we only occasionally see convincingly depicted. It's skillfully crafted, but it depends for its light tone on us finding Roofman lovable. Because no irrevocable tragedy resulted from Manchester's crimes, but perhaps even more importantly because he's played by Channing Tatum, we can.

A LIGHTYEAR IN THE LIFE

Opening this weekend:

Lightyear--At the beginning of this animated feature from Disney/Pixar we are informed that back in 1995, a little boy named Andy got a toy from his favorite movie. "This is that movie."

The reference, of course, is to Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story, the "Space Ranger," voiced in that film by Tim Allen, who competed for Andy's affections with Woody, the cowboy voiced by Tom Hanks. In this new feature Buzz, voiced here by Chris Evans, is the troubled hero of a far-flung sci-fi yarn. At the beginning Buzz, an intrepid hero in the Roger Ramjet vein, screws up while exploring a habitable but dangerous planet, with the result that a huge, radish-shaped spaceship full of scientists in suspended animation gets marooned there.

In trying to resume the space odyssey, Buzz makes repeated attempts to achieve "hyperspace," always falling short, and skipping ahead years each time. He keeps returning from these failed test flights to find a larger and more settled colony than he left, always seemingly less interested in leaving the planet; his fellow Space Ranger and best friend Alisha (Uzo Aduba) is also grayer and has moved on further with her life each time.

The movie has plenty of humor--the best of it, perhaps, from Buzz's deadpan, blandly capable robot cat Sox, voiced by Peter Sohn (Sox reminded me a little of Rags, Woody Allen's robot dog in Sleeper, though Sox proves far more useful). But Lightyear doesn't really have the tone of a comedy; it's surprisingly ambitious and surprisingly poignant. It's about the pain of living with our mistakes, and about the speed with which our lifetimes seem to get away from us.

Like so many of the Pixar films, it's an impressive, thematically complex piece of work. But despite a second act in which Buzz and his band of pals, voiced by the likes of Keke Palmer, Taika Waititi and Dale Soules, battle invading robots, this isn't a rollicking space opera, and it's a little hard to imagine it being Andy's favorite movie.

Culturally, what may be most significant about the film is that it includes a same-sex marriage, complete with a kiss. The significance isn't so much in the relationship itself, which is peripheral to the story, but rather in the splendidly matter-of-fact manner with which it comes across. Again, it belies the supposed conceit of the movie; it's hard to imagine the intensity of the reaction this element would have stirred up in 1995. But it's cheering to note how commonplace it seems today.