David R. Walker

Archive for October, 2025

Roofman

Director: Derek Cianfrance

Cast: Channing Tatum, Kirsten Dunst, Peter Dinklage, LaKeith Stanfield, Ben Mendelsohn, Uzo Aduba, Juno Temple, Tony Revolori

Running Time: 2 hours and 6 minutes

Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Derek Cianfrance returns to the director’s chair after a nine year absence in his new film Roofman starring Channing Tatum and Oscar nominee Kirsten Dunst (The Power of the Dog).

Unlike his previous films The Place beyond the Pines and Blue Valentine which both starred Ryan Gosling, Roofman is much lighter in tone and focuses on the bizarre escapades of an unmanageable father Jeffrey Manchester superbly played by Channing Tatum (Foxcatcher) in an Oscar worthy performance who robs a McDonalds in North Carolina, gets arrested for that crime then escapes out of jail.

The escaped convicted then hides in plain sight in a massive Toys R Us store in Pineville, North Carolina on the outskirts of Charlotte, the state’s biggest city.

Roofman follows the captivating but ultimately heart breaking story of Jeffrey who falls in love with single mother Leigh Wainscott brilliantly played by Dunst in a role which is so opposite to her previous film roles. Kirsten Dunst was once the art house darling of such directors as Lars von Trier and Sofia Coppola. Think Melancholia or Marie Antoinette.

She is now playing a regular mother and employee at a toy store which ironically is managed by the evil boss Mitch superbly played by Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones). When Leigh asks her boss for toys for a local toy drive for her church, he abruptly tells her that Toys R Us are in the business of selling toys and not giving them away.

Leigh belongs to a North Carolina church in which she finds comfort and community. The congregation is run by Pastor Ron and his wife Eileen, played by Ben Mendelsohn and Uzo Aduba. Leigh introduces Jeffrey to this church and integrates him into her life, not knowing that he is a wanted criminal.

Jeffrey’s contact in the criminal underworld is a forger Steve played by Oscar nominee LaKeith Stanfield (Judas and the Black Messiah) and his girlfriend Michelle played by Juno Temple (Atonement).

Roofman is a character driven film about a charismatic thief who falls in love with a divorcee who is desperately looking for Mr Right. Channing Tatum is excellent in a role which requires him to bare all both physically and emotionally. There is a hilarious scene with him naked in the Toys R Us store being discovered by Mitch, the store manager.

The slow pacing of Roofman is a trademark of Derek Cianfrance’s films, yet the crime comedy delivers a fascinating tale of a criminal falling in love with a regular citizen whose love affair is ultimately doomed. As Steve, the forger, advises Jeffrey that once you get a new forged passport and plan on leaving the country don’t go back and say goodbye to anybody that you have become attached to.

With great performances by Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst, Roofman gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10 and is a true American story of love, escape and destiny set in Charlotte, North Carolina. Bizarre but worth seeing.

Tron: Ares

Director: Joachim Ronning

Cast: Greta Lee, Jared Leto, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Jeff Bridges, Arturo Castro, Gillian Anderson

Running Time: 1 hour 59 minutes

Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10

It’s been 15 years since Tron was released in 2010 and 43 years since the original Tron was released back in 1982. The good news is that Jeff Bridges stars in all of them.

2025’s Tron: Ares directed by Norwegian director Joachim Ronning who also did Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge.

Tron: Ares is not a bad film and the visual effects are amazing. The cast is sufficiently varied including Greta Lee (Past Lives) as video game founder Eve Kim and her nemesis, Julian Dillinger played with villainous mischief by Emmy winner Evan Peters (Mare of Easttown). Then there are the programs that Dillinger creates, Ares played by Oscar winner Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club) who is a digital being who wants to escape being disintegrated every 30 minutes and Athena played by the fabulous British actress Jodie Turner-Smith (Queen & Slim)  rocking a particularly retro Grace Jones look.

As Eve and her sidekick Seth Flores played by the Guatemalan star Arturo Castro discover the permanence code which allows advanced AI programs like Ares and Athena to exist forever. Dillinger’s corporation which he is trying to wrestle control away from his overbearing mother, pursue Eve and in a flashy motorbike chase through a nameless city, Eve discovers that she is weirdly attracted to Ares, even though he is a computer program.

Ares realizes that he is a disposable program in which Dillinger can reconstitute at any moment, so he teams up with Eve who sends him back into the original 1980’s video game where in this retro computer world reminiscent of 1980’s arcade games, Ares meets Kevin Flynn played with reverence by Oscar winner Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart), video game creator of the original Tron grid.

Tron: Ares has lavish production values with cutting edge visuals assisted by a catchy soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode. Of course Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Oscar winners for best original score for David Fincher’s The Social Network also assist with making this Tron soundtrack edgy and slick.

The best scene is when Ares meets Kevin Flynn in the original 1980’s computer grid of Tron, the first film which captured my imagination as a 10 year boy back in 1982.

If you enjoy the Tron world and the sleek visual aesthetics, then catch Tron: Ares now in cinemas. The acting is not brilliant but the storyline keeps the characters afloat in a treacherous digital world in which artificial intelligence is fighting raw human emotion.

Tron: Ares gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10 and is worth seeing purely for the entertainment value and this time Disney managed to capture a futuristic world which is hyper contemporary and surprisingly relevant. Recommended viewing for those that love cool science fiction and watch it in the biggest screen possible.

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey

Director: Kogonada

Cast: Colin Farrell, Margot Robbie, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Jodie Turner-Smith, Kevin Kline, Billy Magnussen, Sarah Gadon

Running Time: 1 hour and 49 minutes

Film Rating: 5 out of 10

To understand what a brilliant film is, you also have to watch a terrible film. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is possibly one of the worst films I have ever seen and to think that Oscar nominees Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin) and Margot Robbie (I,Tonya) signed on to star in this film has a lot to be said for their agents.

One the major problems with A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is that the Korean director Kogonada while displaying some odd visual flourishes just delivered possibly one of the most boring cinematic experiences ever made about two singletons, David and Sarah who meet at a wedding and are two of the most uninteresting characters ever created.

There is no conflict at all in an episodic and bizarre storyline by screenwriter Seth Reiss focussing on the surreal journey of David and Sarah as they revisit key moments of their past lives both painful and memorable. With the exception of a brief musical number in which Colin Farrell proves that he is no match for Ryan Gosling in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, the rest of the story is darkly lit and involves the odd couple driving in a car at night in some stylistic version of America which is somnambulistic and tiresome.

There is one other brief scene involving the two main stars along with their ex-lovers played by Billy Magnussen and Canadian actress Sarah Gadon in a crowded restaurant which is vaguely entertaining, otherwise the rest of this film is obscure, lagging any direction and zero conflict. Conflict drives narrative and lifts the characters off the screenplay into sentient beings filled with strong emotions which cause action. Unfortunately David and Sarah are cardboard cut-out characters which frankly Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie should have known better than to even agree to such a terrible script.

After watching brilliant cinema like Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is slow and bizarre, with a convoluted script and direction so bad that I am surprised Sony released this film.

If audiences enjoy boring love stories, then catch this film online or just skip it completely.

Unfortunately A Big Bold Beautiful Journey gets a film rating of 5 out of 10 and goes nowhere except through a series of doors. An unmitigated disaster of a film.