Tatum Shines as a Lovable Scoundrel in Cianfrance’s Surprisingly Warm ‘ROOFMAN’

One of our great modern melodramatists, Derek Cianfrance, a man seemingly born to make the most depressing movie of any given year, has switched gears to deliver something surprisingly warm and crowd-pleasing with Roofman. His earlier filmography is littered with bone-rattlingly bleak, yet always deeply involving works: a relationship splintering in real time in Blue Valentine; the generational sins of a dirtbag father rippling across years in The Place Beyond the Pines; and a doomed seafaring romance in The Light Between Oceans. The Canadian filmmaker knows how to wring tears and leave audiences emotionally concussed. That’s not to say Roofman, his first feature in nearly a decade, doesn’t have its share of moral murk and dramatic heft, it’s just the first time one of his films has felt genuinely nice.

Roofman tells the true story of Jeffrey Manchester (Channing Tatum), a conspicuously affable family man and (brief) career criminal who escapes from prison and holes up inside a Toys “R” Us. The film may lack the razor blade emotional edge that made Cianfrance’s early work so gutting, but this new era proves he can still construct an engaging, well-built yarn, even without buckets of bathos. Manchester, an ex–military man struggling to support his expectant wife and three kids, embarks on a bizarre crime spree, breaking into dozens of McDonald’s restaurants by hammering through the roof, one time locking employees in a meat freezer, only after making sure they were wearing jackets so they wouldn’t get too chilly – to do anything else would simply be not gentlemanly.

Jeffrey briefly enjoys the material rewards of his crimes before being caught and getting the book thrown at him: he’s sentenced to 45 years in prison, a sentence more befitting a cold-blooded killer than this lovable rapscallion. Cianfrance sketches this section briskly, using it as a setup for Jeffrey’s continued miscalibration of values – confusing providing material goods with acts of love.

The real meat of Roofman unfolds after Jeffrey’s escape. After a savvy get away, he builds a secret shelter behind a bike display in a Toys “R” Us, living off peanut M&Ms and, later, pawning console games for cash while waiting for the heat to die down. The set-up sounds straight out of a Mr. Beast video: a psychological thriller, Cast Away by way of retail purgatory, but under Cianfrance’s direction, these sections hue closer to a Home Alone vibe. There’s an odd, buoyant charm in watching this man-child turn his hiding place into a clubhouse rather than a cell, though we feel the days and weeks weighing on him, particularly his lack of connection to the outside world. It’s not lost on him that in order to escape prison, he has built a new prison for himself.

Things take a turn when Jeffrey meets Leigh (Kirsten Dunst), a kindly, church-going single mom and Toys “R” Us employee. When Leigh clashes with her not-understanding manager Mitch about scheduling issues, Jeffrey surreptitiously comes to her aid, breaking into Mitch’s computer to change Leigh’s shift times and allowing her more time with her girls. His increasingly frequent excursions outside his hiding spot draw him closer into Leigh’s penitent orbit and a hesitant romance blooms over Red Lobster cheddar biscuits. Realistically, an escaped convict living in a toy store, attending church, and dating someone while his face is plastered across the evening news should raise some eyebrows, but Cianfrance doesn’t linger on plausibility and has the real life story to point to with any questions of veracity.

Instead, the film’s tension comes from how easily Jeffrey charms those around him, and how easily we, too, buy into his decency. The man commits armed robbery, assault, and arson, but at the end of the day, his real life victims have little to say negative about him. The movie tries to capture this dichotomy between the man and his crimes, mostly skimming over the darker psychology that drives him to extreme acts, at once making the story more palatable for general audiences but pulling just enough punch to keep it from true excellence.

Tatum is the movie’s charming anchor and he’s rarely been better. His version of Jeffrey is both a lovable oddball and an emotional cipher, a man equally comfortable charming the shoes off church-going strangers or disappearing off the grid entirely. When Leigh asks if he’s gay because of his gentle, almost effeminate demeanor, Roofman teases at the duality of this guy. Perhaps there is something in his military background that unlocks the two Jeffries – the one capable of cold-cocking another person for a snatch and run, the other overjoyed to spread Christmas mirth – but that interiority is hinted at rather than made textual, and that complexity comes entirely from Tatum. Tatum plays Jeffrey as a hollowed-out man child, a bit shell-shocked and rudderless but still radiating warmth, a contradiction that makes the performance one of his most nuanced to date.

The impressive supporting cast helps flesh out the world around Jeffrey. Peter Dinklage brings sharp comic precision to Mitch, the prissy store manager whose self-importance bellies a deeper corporatized emptiness. LaKeith Stanfield gives contemplative depth to Steve, Jeffrey’s old army buddy who’s also flirting with the wrong side of the law. Ben Mendelsohn appears as a sing-song preacher with a generous spirit, paired with Uzo Aduba as his well-meaning wife, while Lily Collias plays Leigh’s angsty teen daughter with just the right mix of “fuck you” attitude and eventual warmth. Together they fill out the margins of this North Carolina town, keeping it from feeling like another prefab “quirky small town” while still delivering a version of movie-friendly Americana.

Christopher Bear’s score gently heightens the emotional beats without overselling them, and Andrij Parekh’s cinematography captures the quiet devastation hiding inside the bright fluorescent glow of Toys “R” Us. Production designer Inbal Weinberg nails the mid-2000s setting with tactile precision, from the era’s Blockbuster-blue palette to the faint sense that 2004 was still clinging to the ’90s.

If Roofman feels lighter than Cianfrance’s usual gut punches, it’s because he finally seems interested in redemption that doesn’t come with a fatal cost. There’s still pain beneath the surface, but it’s tempered by an unexpected generosity — toward his characters, his audience, maybe even himself. The movie plays like a director trying to make peace with sentiment, and for once, letting a not-quite-happy but also not emotionally devastating ending stand without irony. It’s a strange new mode for him, but an oddly welcome one.

CONCLUSION: Channing Tatum is great as a charming criminal on the lamb in this surprisingly crowd-pleasing crime dramedy from Derek Cianfrance. ‘Roofman’ may not be his most heavy-hitting feature but it shows a director willing to experiment with not always taking himself so seriously, and delivering something quite pleasant in the process.