Alissa Marie Pearson, Ben Mendelsohn, Channing Tatum, Derek Cianfrance, drama, Emory Cohen, film festivals, Gabriella Cila, Jeffrey Manchester, Juno Temple, Kennedy Maeve Moyer, Kirana Kiuc, Kirsten Dunst, LaKeith Stanfield, Lily Colias, Melonie Diaz, movies, Peter Dinklage, reviews, Roofman, TIFF, Tony Revolori, Toronto International Film Festival, true crime, Uzo Aduba
October 7, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Derek Cianfrance
Culture Representation: Taking place in North Carolina, from 2003 to 2005, the dramatic film “Roofman” (based on real events) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A convicted robber escapes from prison, hides in a Toys “R” Us store, and begins romancing a divorced mother, who is one of the store’s employees.
Culture Audience: “Roofman” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and well-acted dramas based on true crime stories.
The crime drama “Roofman” has engaging performances in this “based on a true story” about a convicted robber who escapes from prison, hides in a toy store, and starts a romance with a divorced mother. The movie is a bit too long, but it’s entertaining. “Roofman” (which has a total running time of 126 minutes) also skirts dangerously close to glorifying this criminal and making him look too sympathetic, while glossing over a lot of the damage he did during his crime spree.
Directed by Derek Cianfrance (who co-wrote the “Roofman” screenplay with Kirt Gunn), “Roofman” takes place in North Carolina from 2003 to 2005. It’s a very condensed version of the real timeline period, which took place from 2000 to 2005. Several details of the real story are changed in the movie for dramatic purposes, although the names of movie’s central couple are the same as the real people portrayed in the movie. “Roofman” had its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.
“Roofman” (which was filmed on location in North Carolina, and is told in chronological order), begins by showing U.S. Army veteran/divorced father Jeffrey “Jeff” Manchester (played by Channing Tatum) doing what he’s been doing for the the past two years: robbing fast-food places by cutting open a hole in the roof at night, waiting for first-shift employees to arrive at the restaurant before it opens, and then forcing the employees by gunpoint to give him any cash that’s in the restaurant. Jeff, who wears a mask during the robberies, always politely tells his victims that if they remain calm and does what he says, then he won’t hurt them. (For the purposes of this review, the real Jeff Manchester will be referred to by his last name. The character of Jeff Manchester in “Roofman” will be referred to by his first name.)
In this opening scene, Jeff robs a McDonald’s and tells the three employees—Jade (played by Kirana Kiuc), Joslyn (played by Gabriella Cila) and store manager Duane (played by Tony Revolori)—that he’s locking them in the freezer room. Jade and Joslyn each has her own jacket, but Duane doesn’t have a jacket. Duane is afraid that he’ll get hypothermia in the freezer room. Jeff takes pity on Duane and gives his own jacket to Duane before locking all the employees in the freezer room. It’s this movie’s way of showing that even though Jeff is an armed robber, he shows “kindness” to his victims.
Jeff also assures the employees that they won’t be in the freezer for long because right before he leaves, he’s going to use a phone in the restaurant to call 911 to send help. (Jeff presumably disguises his voice for this phone call.) What the movie doesn’t take into account is that this seeming act of kindness doesn’t erase the possibility that one of the robbery victims could have an undisclosed medical condition that would be very harmful and possibly deadly if that person undergoes any expected stress. It also wasn’t smart of Jeff to leave his jacket behind because the jacket has DNA evidence.
Jeff is next seen hosting a birthday party for his eldest child: a daughter named Becky (played by Alissa Marie Pearson), whose only gift request is to get a bicycle. Becky is about 4 or 5 years old. Jeff can’t afford a bicycle, so his birthday gift to Becky is a box set to build toy cars. Becky is visibly confused and disappointed, even though Jeff tries to convince Becky that this is a fun gift for her.
Jeff’s financial problems and being a less-than-responsible father are depicted as two of the main reasons why he got divorced. He and his ex-wife Talena (played by Melonie Diaz) also have twin infant sons, whose names are not mentioned in the movie. Talena is fed up and disgusted with Jeff. She doesn’t trust that he will improve.
Jeff gripes about how miserable he is to his former Army buddy Steve (played by LaKeith Stanfield), who’s involved in criminal activities of his own: Steve and his girlfriend Michelle (played by Juno Temple) sell fake identities and fake ID documents. Steve tells Jeff that Jeff is smarter than most people because Jeff can see solutions to problems that other people can’t see. Steve advises Jeff to use his talents wisely.
After this birthday party, Jeff goes on a robbery spree. The media and others have given the robber the nickname Roofman because of how the robber accesses the restaurants by breaking in through the roof. Steve suspects that Jeff is really Roofman, but Jeff keeps his robberies a secret from everyone.
The movie fast-forwards to a year later, in 2004, when Jeff’s birthday party for Becky is much more elaborate, and he gives her the gift that she wanted: a brand-new bicycle. Becky is ecstatic, but the birthday party turns into a disaster when police show up to arrest Jeff for the robberies. Jeff runs away, but he’s quickly caught, and Becky witnesses this arrest. Jeff is subsequently convicted of the McDonald’s robbery and kidnapping that were shown in the beginning of the movie.
In real life, Manchester was arrested in a wooded area after a silent alarm went off during one of his robberies. His arrest did not take place in front of his daughter or during a birthday party. In the movie, as in real life, Jeff was sentenced to 45 years in prison because the judge felt that Jeff deserved a harsher sentence because Jeff put the robbery victims in a freezer room.
Jeff is the intermittent narrator of this movie. He explains that during his first several months in prison, he became a well-behaved prisoner who earned the trust of the prison employees. Jeff also learned the prison’s routines of when delivery trucks would come and go. He is entrusted with helping unload some of these deliveries and ends up escaping by hiding underneath a delivery truck.
Jeff hides in a Toys “R” Us store and lives there undetected for the next several months. Jeff turns off the recording function in the store’s video surveillance system, which the store employes don’t bother to check on a regular basis. He makes money by stealing items from the store and selling them. Using the alias John Zorn, Jeff ends up dating a Toys “R” Us store employee named Leigh Wainscott (played by Kirsten Dunst), whom he meets when he joins a local Christian church, which is led by amiable Pastor Ron (played by Ben Mendelsohn) and his cheerful wife Eileen (played by Uzo Aduba).
Leigh works as a sales clerk at Toys “R” Us. It’s mentioned at one point that she has a master’s degree, but the movie doesn’t give her enough of a backstory to explain why a middle-aged person with a master’s degree is working as a low-paid sales clerk at a toy store. In real life, Wainscott did not work at the Toys “R” Us store where Manchester was hiding. The movie also erases the fact that Manchester eventually relocated from the Toys “R” Us store to hide in a nearby Circuit City. In real life, Manchester was living in this Circuit City when he did the big robbery of Toys “R” Us that is depicted in the movie.
Leigh, who is not in contact with her ex-husband, is the mother of two daughters: moody Lindsay (played by Lily Colias) and sweet-natured Delilah, nicknamed Dee (played by Kennedy Maeve Moyer), who have very different reactions to Jeff/John when they first meet him. Lindsay, who is 15 or 16 years old, is standoffish and skeptical. Dee, who is about 11 or 12 years old, is friendly and accepting.
Jeff immediately wins over Dee because he knew in advance that she was a fan of “The Legend of Zelda” video games, so he gives Zelda toys and games to Dee the first time that he meets her. The movie shows several scenes where Jeff has a pattern of buying gifts for people as a way to get them to like him or love him more. His materialism and greed are his biggest flaws and will be his downfall.
Jeff becomes a popular member of the congregation because of his good looks and charm. When people ask him what he does for a living, he says he works in a top-secret job for the government. A big plot hole in the movie is the entire time that Jeff and Leigh are dating and fall in love, Leigh never asks to see where he lives. Jeff presumably told her that he couldn’t disclose where he lived because of confidentiality reasons related to his job.
Leigh’s blind trust of Jeff is an example of what can really happen, because there are thousands of people in real life who’ve been conned by getting even less information from the scammers who romance them. Leigh is also an ideal victim for this type of con artist: She tells Jeff up front that she hasn’t dated at all since her divorce. Her emotional vulnerability also set her up to be a target of Jeff’s con game and lies.
Other supporting characters in the movie are prickly Toys “R” Us store manager Mitch (played by Peter Dinklage) and Toys “R” Us stock employee Otis (played by Emory Cohen), who is meek and often verbally bullied by Mitch. By having Mitch be a jerk, the movie makes it easier for viewers to not feel much pity for Mitch when Jeff steals from the store, knowing that Mitch will be blamed for these merchandise losses. “Roofman” has this type of manipulation of the facts and fabrication of certain characters’ personalities, in order to make Jeff look more sympathetic than he deserves.
During the movie’s end credits, “Roofman” over-praises the real Manchester in a montage of archival news clips showing interviews with some of the people who were conned by Manchester in real life, such as Wainscott and Pastor Ron Smith. These interview clips only have flattering commentary about Manchester. It all seems very one-sided and agenda-based. The filmmakers also could’ve trimmed a few unnecessary scenes that didn’t happen in real life, in order to bring the total run time to less than two hours.
Even with distortion of certain facts, “Roofman” is held together by the believable performances of the principal cast members. One of the best scenes in the movie isn’t in the flashy “fugitive on the run” moments, but a moment that comes in the last third of the film when Jeff and Leigh are attending a church service. Leigh is singing in the church choir, while Jeff is in the audience. They look at each other with tears in their eyes because it’s at a point in their relationship when Leigh is having doubts about Jeff, and he knows it. This type of scene conveys the more impactful and heartbreaking consequences of the true story, rather than scenes that involve guns or police chases.
Paramount Pictures will release “Roofman” in U.S. cinemas on October 10, 2025. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on October 6, 2025.