ROOFMAN : Tuesday 21st October 2025

I saw the M Rated 'ROOFMAN' earlier this week, and this American crime comedy drama film is Co-Written for the screen and Directed by Derek Cianfrance who made his Directorial debut with 'Brother Tied' in 1998 and would follow this up with 'Blue Valentine' in 2010, 'The Place Beyond the Pines' in 2012, and 'The Light Between Oceans' in 2016. The film had its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in early September, was released in the US and here in Australia on 9th October, has generated largely positive press and has so far grossed US$21M from a production budget of US$18M. 

The films story opens in 1998 with Jeffrey Manchester (Channing Tatum), a divorced US Army veteran living in North Carolina. He struggles to provide for his three young children, and after one of his daughters sixth birthday, he is reminded by Steve (LaKeith Stanfield), his friend and fellow member of the 82nd Airborne Division, of his powerful skills of observation. Jeffrey uses this 'superpower' for noticing and exploiting routines to rob a McDonald's, breaking in through the roof at night. Surprising the morning shift before they start work for the day, Jeffrey orders the employees into the walk-in freezer but treats them kindly, even giving the manager his own coat to keep warm, before escaping with the contents of the safe. Over the course of the following two years, Jeffrey carries out about forty-five or so robberies with the same strategy, capturing the attention of the authorities and the media as the mysterious 'Roofman'. He is subsequently caught and arrested at his daughter's birthday party after attempting to escape the clutches of the local Police, and is sentenced to 45 years in prison, while his ex-wife Talana (Melonie Diaz) meanwhile ends his contact with their children.

In July 2004, he works in the prison shop, using his attention to detail to escape by hiding underneath a delivery truck and concealing himself above a black painted plank of wood that fits snugly under the truck and is sturdy enough to bear his weight. Hitchhiking to Charlotte in makeshift street clothes, he is unable to reach his children with a manhunt underway, and his face on all the news channels. He calls Steve, who warns him to lie low for a month and make contact with nobody. He is forced to hide in the bathroom ceiling at a Toys 'R' Us store.

And so Jeffrey ventures into the employee area once the store closes for the night, and finds the security system manual and puts a stop to the stores CCTV cameras from recording. He kits out a hiding place in a hollow wall behind a bicycle display using whatever he can find from the stores shelves to make himself a mattress and a chair. Concealing himself, sleeping, watching and listening in on the remote baby monitoring system to track the staff he has set up during the day, and roaming the empty store at night. 

Helping himself to clothes from the donation bin and other merchandise, he survives on Peanut M&M's and baby food. When Mitch (Peter Dinklage), the store's manager, is unwilling to accommodate his employee Leigh's (Kirsten Dunst) schedule as a single mother, so Jeffrey accesses Mitch's computer to change Leigh's shifts himself, by viewing Mitch's log in and password through his hidden cameras.

Jeffrey steals toys to donate to the toy drive Leigh has organised at her church, and when he is pressed to enter the church by another member of the congregation he claims to be a visiting New Yorker named John Zorn and is introduced to Leigh. He pawns stolen video games to pay for dental work after living on a diet of peanut M&M's. He later evades questions at a church singles lunch event by telling Leigh and the other gathered women that he is an undercover government agent. Leigh asks 'John' on a date, and they begin a relationship. Missing his own children, Jeffrey makes a concerted  effort to bond with Leigh's daughters Lindsay (Lily Collias) and Dee (Kennedy Moyer), but is unable to persuade Leigh to start a new life together some place else.

Early one morning while washing himself at the store, a naked and soap covered Jeffrey is interrupted by Mitch who comes into work much earlier than usual. Jeffrey quickly retreats to his hideout, while Mitch frightened bolts to the relative safety of his office, leaving Police to believe a homeless man snuck in and then fled through a fire escape. Later Lindsay and Leigh get into a heated argument, as she lashes out at her mother. Jeffrey buys a used car to teach her to drive and gain some independence and takes the family on a reckless test drive, with the used car salesman (Jimmy O.Yang) sat in the passenger seat nearly crapping himself over Jeffrey's high speed driving antics. 

Steve returns after months overseas, and agrees to help Jeffrey escape the country under a new identity for US$50K. Steve's partner Michelle (Juno Temple) aids the process by co-ordinating a hair piece for disguise purposes to help him clear customs. Desperate, Jeffrey botches a break-in at the pawn shop to steal a gun, and burns down his dentist's office to cover his tracks for fear of being identified through his dental records. 

At a team meeting held by Mitch just before the onset of the busiest time of the year, Christmas, he informs his team that all hours as rostered must be worked, no exceptions, and that he expects 110% commitment from every team member to achieve the stores sales goals. Jeffrey then once again adjusts Leigh's schedule to keep her away from the store until 10:30am on the day that Jeffrey holds the Toys 'R' Us staff at gunpoint and pistol-whips an armoured car guard knocking him unconscious. However, Leigh arrives early while he is calling for an ambulance. She recognises the masked Jeffrey, who flees with the store's cash before the Police arrive, who upon investigating the store premises discover his hideout. Jeffrey pays Steve for his fake documents and leaves for the airport, but receives a call from Leigh while en route. Unwilling to abandon her, he arrives at her apartment at their designated time of 5:00pm clutching helium filled festive balloons and gifts, but it turns out to be a trap by the Police after Leigh gave him up. He is taken into custody and receives an additional forty-year sentence.

Leigh visits Jeffrey in prison and they forgive each other, and tearfully embrace. He reconnects with his own daughter as he accepts life behind bars. An epilogue reveals that Leigh remarried but visited Jeffrey again for the first time in decades, while Jeffrey made two more escape attempts in 2009 and 2017, but says that no more escape plans feature on his agenda, that he is resigned to his fate in prison, and it is where he deserves to be. He is eligible for parole in 2036. Also starring Ben Mendelsohn and Tony Revolori.

I enjoyed 'Roofman' - up to a point. This film is part RomCom, part drama and part thriller, and is ably held together by two on point performances by a likeable rogue thief in Channing Tatum, and his trusting but ultimately betrayed girlfriend Kirsten Dunst. It has heart, humour, emotion and tension and Director Derek Cianfrance knows how to weave these elements in to a neat and tidy unoffensive package, but at a run time of 126 minutes the film for me outstayed its welcome by twenty minutes and I felt it dragging at the midpoint. That said this is a crowd pleaser of a film that demonstrates that life is stranger than fiction but I would have liked to have seen more of Manchester's roofman exploits and a little less of his Toys 'R' Us squat.

'Roofman' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-