by Tim Gordon
When a former military veteran finds himself struggling and unable to secure honest work or provide for his young daughter, he turns to a life of crime in Roofman, a biographical crime dramedy that feels equal parts caper, character study, and cautionary tale.
Based on the true exploits of Jeffrey Manchester, Channing Tatum embodies the so-called “dumbest smart criminal” with charm, vulnerability, and surprising depth. Manchester, a former Army reservist, developed a bizarre but strangely ingenious method of robbing McDonald’s restaurants: slipping in through the roof, quietly corralling employees, and exiting with the cash. His crimes were marked by an odd mix of politeness and recklessness, a paradox that both defined and doomed him.
Tatum brings a surprising tenderness to Jeffrey, grounding his criminality not in malice but in desperation and misplaced pride. When he disappoints his daughter on her sixth birthday, unable to afford a simple bicycle, he becomes consumed with proving his worth through material gestures. His friend Steve (LaKeith Stanfield) nudges him toward his strengths, careful observation, military precision, and patience, which Jeffrey twists into a blueprint for burglary.
His eventual prison break, pulled off with the same quiet cleverness, only deepens the paradox. Rather than disappearing, he hides in plain sight, constructing a makeshift home inside a Toys “R” Us next to an abandoned Circuit City. Here, Roofman leans into absurdity with surreal flair: Jeffrey lives in the rafters, showers at a nearby gym, and sneaks through the aisles after hours, blending into the most public hiding place imaginable.
Cianfrance stages these sequences with an uncanny balance of humor and melancholy. The director, known for Blue Valentine and The Place Beyond the Pines, has always excelled at finding tragedy in flawed men. Here, he treats Manchester with both fascination and empathy. The Toys “R” Us setting could have been played purely for laughs, but Cianfrance leans into its poignancy. The man who could “see what others couldn’t” creates a secret home among children’s toys, a hollow gesture toward the daughter who only ever wanted his presence, not his presents.
The heart of the film arrives when Jeffrey falls for Leigh (Kirsten Dunst), a single mother and employee at the very store he hides in. Their relationship unfolds with sweetness and tension, complicated by his double life. Dunst gives the film its emotional ballast, playing Leigh as cautious yet hopeful, a woman who senses danger even as she yearns for connection. Their romance, doomed as it is, gives the story a tragic pulse.
The supporting cast enriches the eccentric tone. Peter Dinklage is dryly funny as the oblivious store manager, Uzo Aduba lends gravitas as the pastor’s wife who becomes a moral counterweight, and Ben Mendelsohn delivers a slippery turn as a pastor drawn into Jeffrey’s orbit. Together, they give the film a texture that feels closer to a Coen Brothers oddity than a conventional biopic.
Cianfrance uses Manchester’s story to probe larger questions about visibility, identity, and the delusions people construct to survive. Jeffrey’s ability to notice the details others overlook makes him a criminal genius in one sense but blind in another. He cannot see that his quest to provide for his daughter keeps him from being truly present in her life. That contradiction, brilliant observer and terrible decision-maker, becomes the essence of the film’s tragedy.
Cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes shoots the Toys “R” Us hideout with both whimsy and dread, turning fluorescent aisles into liminal dreamscapes. At times, the film feels like a fairy tale gone awry, a story about a man who tried to disappear into a child’s world but was undone by the responsibilities of the real one.
Roofman is not perfect. Its pacing drags in the second act, and its tonal shifts occasionally feel uneven. But anchored by Tatum’s most nuanced performance to date, it becomes something more than a true-crime curiosity. It is a meditation on desperation, love, and the absurd lengths to which people go when they cannot see what is right in front of them.
Grade: B-