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Meet some of the real people involved in the story of Roofman
Featurette: Paramount Pictures

Roofman
Directed by Derek Cianfrance
Rated R
Dropped 10 October 2025
#RoofmanMovie

Roofman is an exasperating, milquetoast telling of a bizarre true-life crime spree.

The Fugitive

The story of Jeffrey Manchester is some sort of American tragedy. He’s a military veteran – an Army Reserve sergeant – who some might describe as a genius. He has a tactical view of the world that homes in on so many details most people miss. He’s the father of three kids who deserve much better. He’s the ex-husband who somehow manages to charm the pants off a single mother of two, whom he meets at a church singles group.

Frustrated with the downward trajectory of his failing marriage, Jeffrey sought to alter the course of his family life in a pretty novel way. He didn’t rob banks. He certainly didn’t find a job that could put his skills to good use. Instead, his super-keen powers of observation led him on a robbery spree of McDonald’s, Burger King and Blockbuster franchises. His modus operandi: he’d break in through the roof in the middle of the night then have employees unlock the safes and hand over the cash at gunpoint as soon as they arrived in the morning.

But he’d be remarkably courteous while doing so, to the point of giving a manager his jacket before locking him in Mickey D’s freezer. Of course, being a nice guy, he’d also call 911 to let them know there were people stuck in the fast-food food locker.

Nonetheless, even with gifts aplenty, all the money in the world couldn’t save his marriage or help him evade police.

After being sidelined in jail for a couple years, he escaped in a – yeah – novel way.

And that’s when he took up semi-permanent residence in a Toys R Us.

It’s a true story dating back to 1999 that made its way through the true crime shows circuit several years ago and now this story set in North Carolina has been given the Hollywood sheen.

That Hollywood gloss is the movie’s undoing.

The Manipulation Game

Watching Roofman is an exercise in manipulation. Or, at least, an attempt at manipulation, which is an artform Jeffrey mastered. Jeff would play the manipulation game very well. He’d make himself known to prison guards and other workers, gain a reputation for being nice and cooperative. He also knew people were pre-occupied and suffered from short attention spans (and to think this was all before the modern age of smartphones, social media and really stupid people everywhere walking the streets while staring at their glass instead of the world around them).

Then – bam! – he’d take advantage of the first opportunity to take advantage of any one of those people whose trust he’d gained.

It’s all pre-meditated. It’s all cold. It’s all indicative of Jeff not really being a "nice guy," but rather a relentless sociopath (and narcissist) who’s oblivious to the trail of devastation he’s created. Oblivious or downright compassionless.

Even so, this is the kind of good-hearted R-rated drama that would love to be revered as a new holiday classic. That "R" is sure to stifle the box office and it’s thanks largely to the over-exposure of Channing Tatum’s buttocks and some scattered foul language; the violence amounts to not much more than a punch in the face.

Much like other unlikely holiday classics – such as Gremlins and Home Alone – some of the action takes place between Halloween and Christmas.

Cue the carols.

And cue the mini violin as Jeff makes one bad (actually, stupid) decision after another.

American Greed

There’s a whole lot of talent both in front of and behind the cameras of Roofman.

The problem is Roofman never really finds its own soul. It’s so superficial and focused for far too long on trying to make Jeff a sympathetic character, it never goes for the jugular. It could’ve been an over-the-top comedy or it could’ve been a stark crime drama.

It also could’ve also served as a far more interesting social commentary. Digging into the weeds of the real-life story, Jeff started hanging out in a shuttered Circuit City, then discovered a pathway connecting the defunct electronics store with its neighboring toy store. It’s interesting to think about how so many of his targets are gone now: Toys R Us, Circuit City, Blockbuster. Sure, there are efforts to revive the toy store brand and the video store name. But more could’ve been done here to layer the obvious charms of the story with a more educated insight on that snapshot in time.

Instead, Roofman is merely a middle of the road movie that – despite all the colorful activity – drags on for two hours. Even Jeff’s Robin Hood-esque taking from the wealthy (albeit, now bankrupt) Toys R Us and giving it to family and church-organized toy drives, as well as selling $10,000 worth of video games to pawn shops for some money to dump on his new "adopted" family loses its focus and wider-reaching deleterious impacts.

The Butterfly Effect

Tatum stars as Jeffrey. The 45-year-old Tatum (playing the 33-year-old Jeff) looks a little on the thin side. His performance is also a little thin, a little too restrained. Don’t buy into the hype. His performance is no more an Oscar contender than Dwayne Johnson’s in The Smashing Machine.

Kirsten Dunst, as his church-going lover, Leigh Wainscott, brings some emotional weight to the movie, balancing her precarious romance with the challenges of raising her two young daughters. Peter Dinklage brings a little Office-style flair as the Toys R Us manager. (Jeff sets up his own surveillance system thanks to some baby monitors plucked off the store’s shelves. He keeps tabs on Toys R Us office politics and unwittingly participates in one of the first experiments in reality TV as a result.)

But, on the perplexing side is LaKeith Stanfield as Steve, one of Jeff’s army buddies, who now sells passport forgeries and orchestrates the illicit movement of people for a hefty price. While Jeff apparently did have some sort of plan to flee the US, this relationship simply doesn’t work. Faring even worse is Juno Temple as Michelle, Steve’s lover and – apparently – disguise expert. She’s a stereotype and the story of that trio feels more like a bookend, an attachment rather than an organic part of the story.

As part of their relationship, Jeff refers to himself with the codename Cousin Oliver, apparently a pop culture reference to the notoriously disliked character from The Brady Bunch. And Jeff takes on the pseudonym of John Zorn among his newfound church brethren. It’s a name which sounds like he’s become a relative of Max Zorin, the original tech-bro bad guy from the James Bond flick A View to a Kill. Eagle eyes take note: among Jeff’s laundry air-drying on jump ropes in Toys R Us is a View to a Kill T-shirt.

Goldfinger

Originally sentenced in 2000 to 45 years for a single incident of robbery and kidnapping in 1999, which was a stiff sentence intended to acknowledge his suspected involvement in many more crimes, Jeff’s given another 32 years after his Toys R Us residency in 2004 (and suspected run of some 45 robberies). Compounding the ridiculousness that is Jeff Manchester, he set an entire dentist’s office ablaze to destroy his dental records. "Ooops," he says.

Jeff has tried to escape twice during his current prison residency. Even if did get out, he couldn’t run back to Leigh; she’s remarried.

Still, Jeff will be eligible for parole in 2036. For now, Jeff belongs in prison. And he knows it.

Police described him as remorseless even as he apologized repeatedly to a woman he feigned to love. The guy’s a through-and-through creep whose worst theft was his own once-promising life. He’s not someone to be revered and that’s where the movie fails most.

Director and co-writer Derek Cianfrance (a Boulder film school hero) has made some interesting, challenging movies, including Blue Valentine and The Light Between Oceans. But here, the punch is missed.

Instead, there are the nice touches: some of the real-life people caught up in Jeff’s chaos make cameos in the movie and the end credits include a mix of vintage news coverage and contemporary interviews recollecting the real-life events by many of the key people involved.

There’s even an oh-so Hollywood callback to an earlier conversation about Jeff tapping on Leigh’s window or knocking on her door while sneaking around her kids to carry on their relationship. It’s the kind of moment that seems better suited for Jerry Maguire or any one of those Kate Hudson romances. Here, it’s a misplaced movie moment that serves nothing more than to give Jeff that much more sympathy.

Ultimately, the movie’s lesson, such as it is, gets lost in that gloss. None of his key relationships wanted "things" from him (okay, his daughter really, really, really wanted a new bike). What they supposedly wanted was his presence, his time. It’s a hollow message, though. It’s a Hollywood spin that sweetly humanizes some disastrous relationships.

Now, all Jeff’s got is time to serve. (Aw. Where’s that mini violin?)

• Originally published at MovieHabit.com.