Roofman: Tatum stars in Cianfrance's rooftop robber drama

Channing Tatum stars as Jeffrey Manchester, a former Army officer turned burglar who hides inside a Toys R Us after escaping prison, in Roofman, Derek Cianfrance's darkly comic, true‑life drama that played to positive early buzz at international festivals this month. The film, which dramatizes Manchester's string of rooftop robberies of McDonalds, his 45‑year sentence and subsequent escape, screened in Toronto to a standing ovation and was also shown earlier at the Venice Film Festival, where it attracted attention for its unusual mix of humor, empathy and tragedy.

Roofman traces how Manchester, nicknamed the Rooftop Robber, cut through restaurant roofs to steal from franchises, at one point locking staff in a freezer and later taking refuge in the ceiling of a Charlotte Toys R Us for months. In the film he becomes romantically involved with Leigh, a Toys R Us employee played by Kirsten Dunst, and gradually is drawn into the rhythms of her life and her children even as his past closes in. The ensemble includes Ben Mendelsohn, LaKeith Stanfield, Juno Temple, Uzo Aduba, Peter Dinklage, Melonie Diaz, Lily Collias and Jimmy O. Yang.

Director Derek Cianfrance, known for the bleak...