“Roofman,” acclaimed art house filmmaker Derek Cianfrance‘s attempt at making a crowd-pleasing biopic, stars Channing Tatum as Jeffrey Manchester, a former United States Army Reserve officer who spent two years in the late ‘90s sneaking into various fast food franchises via their unsecured roofs, holding their employees at gunpoint, and robbing them. After being sentenced to 45 years in prison for his actions (which he refers to in voiceover as “bad decisions”), he uses his keen observational skills—what fellow Army vet Steve (LaKeith Stanfield), seemingly his only friend, calls his “superpower”—to devise an elaborate escape from prison in North Carolina. He then spends six months hiding out inside a hidden hollow structure inside a Toys “R” Us, where he soon falls for one of the employees, Leigh (Kirsten Dunst), a recently divorced, church-going single mom of two. 

Tatum is as charming as always, while also adding a layer of pathos to Manchester, who goes by the alias of John Zorn once he gets into a relationship with Leigh. Much of the depth of this character comes from Tatum’s ability to broadcast complex emotional states through just his eyes. Tatum’s undeniable charisma is such that, despite his “terrible choices,” we feel for him as he waits in the toy store while his friend Steve, whose side business is obtaining passports and crafting new identities for people on the run, serves another tour of duty in Afghanistan (most of the movie is set in 2004). We even root for his relationship with Leigh and her girls (played by “Good One” breakout star Lily Collias and newcomer Kennedy Moyer). 

As a filmmaker, Cianfrance pushes his creative boundaries, moving away from soulful examinations of the human condition and interpersonal relationships towards broader characterizations, with middling results. The toy store’s manager, Mitch (Peter Dinklage), is a vapid amalgam of every shitty manager anyone who’s worked in retail would recognize. Similarly, Ben Mendelsohn and Uzo Aduba, as Leigh’s pastor and his wife, respectively, are stereotypes of Southern hospitality and good Christian values. Stanfield does his best in his few scenes to add a modicum of sincerity to his role as Manchester’s friend, but his talents are mostly wasted in a nothing role. Meanwhile, as Steve’s girlfriend, Juno Temple basically reuses her same accent from “Killer Joe” without any of the complexity of character. Dunst breathes life into Leigh, who acts as a cypher, with her trademark emotional honesty and expressive face. She fares better than Melonie Diaz as Manchester’s first wife, who is relegated to a handful of clichéd scenes as the prototypical fed-up wife.

Despite these failings, the movie had me under its charming spell until the credits rolled. The comedy is well-timed. Tatum is great at playing unassuming, goofy everymen, and gives the audience what he knows they want: a little dancing, and at least one scene that includes his naked ass. But, as the credits rolled, archival news footage of Manchester’s crimes played on the side of the screen as the names of the cast and crew scrolled on the other. The footage features several victims of his robberies describing him as “a nice guy,” and the tone of the reporting about his spree and his manhunt is overall jovial. The audience at the world premiere ate it up, laughing almost more during these clips than during the film itself. 

While I watched the footage, I couldn’t help but think of Rob, the protagonist of Garrett Bradley’s documentary “Time,” who was convicted of a similar crime (in his case, armed bank robbery), for which he was sentenced to 60 years in prison (of which he served 21 years before being granted clemency). I can’t imagine his life story being told with such a light touch, or a TIFF audience laughing slyly at his charm. Why is one man who made “bad decisions” afforded good humor during the coverage of their crimes, while the other is not?

At the end of “Roofman,” Manchester says he understands now that his actions hurt the people that he loved. That he’s finally realized that they didn’t need him to buy them things, they just wanted his time. Yet this revelation rings hollow, coming at the end of a script that refuses to examine the societal pressures or systems that led a man like him to believe rampant consumerism was essential for a happy family. Nor does it seek to understand the psychology at play for a veteran returning to society, having seen the worst of things, only to be thrust into this system that makes him believe he can’t give his family the kind of lifestyle they “deserve.” Ultimately, “Roofman” is a slick but incurious film that is so preoccupied with showing the what of Manchester’s story that it doesn’t bother to examine the why.

This review was filed from the Toronto International Film Festival. It opens on October 10, 2025.