Roofman Fact Check: What Channing Tatum’s Movie Gets Right — And What It Invents

Channing Tatum has a new one in theaters, and yeah, Roofman is living up to the title. Critics are in, audiences are into it, and the box office looks healthy. The catch with biopics is always the same: what actually happened, and what got juiced up for the movie? The good news here is Jeffrey Manchester’s real life is already stranger, funnier, and more stressful than most fiction, so Derek Cianfrance and co-writer Kirt Gunn didn’t have to invent much to keep things lively.

What the movie gets right

The basics are true. Manchester was a US Army Reserve soldier who pulled off more than 40 fast-food robberies across six states. His thing wasn’t violence; it was charm. He was well-mannered to a baffling degree, which is how he ended up with a reputation as the politest criminal anyone had ever met. Tatum leans into that contradiction: a creative rooftop burglar who says please and thank you.

The prison break? That happened. After he escaped, Manchester really did hide out for months in a dusty corner above a Toys "R" Us. He built a whole secret life in that cramped space and snuck out at night to roam. The movie’s not exaggerating that part.

The romance is real too. Kirsten Dunst’s Leigh Wainscott is based on a single mom in North Carolina whom Manchester dated while living under an alias. He brought gifts for her daughters and told people at church he was a government operative working undercover. Not kidding.

And yes, the dentist’s office fire is true. Arson sounds off-brand for someone so careful, but it was a calculated move. He was worried his dental records would tip off police, so he torched the place to erase the evidence.

Where it plays fast and loose

The film streamlines some of the wildest logistics. In reality, when Toys "R" Us filled up with holiday shoppers, Manchester shifted next door to an empty Circuit City. That’s where he settled in for real: he painted his hidey-hole, put up movie posters, and watched DVDs like it was a dorm room. The movie sticks to the toy store, probably because building and shooting two massive retail sets would be a budget and scheduling headache.

There’s also some timeline remixing around his arrests. The film nods to a May 2000 bust by showing him caught while fleeing his daughter’s birthday party. What actually brought him down the first time was more straightforward police work: he robbed two McDonald’s in one day, an employee hit a silent alarm at the second location, and that was that.

The Leigh Wainscott courtship gets a touch of Hollywood, too. The movie has him falling for her after spotting her at Toys "R" Us. In real life, she didn’t work there. They met at church.

And the big finale? The movie stages a dramatic moment where Leigh recognizes Manchester during a masked Toys "R" Us robbery. For the record, what really happened is more methodical: police reached out to Leigh, told her that the charming guy she knew as "John Zorn" was actually Jeffrey Manchester, and persuaded her to lure him back home. That led to his second arrest in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Who’s who

• Channing Tatum - Jeffrey Manchester
• Kirsten Dunst - Leigh Wainscott
• Peter Dinklage - Mitch, a Toys "R" Us general manager
• LaKeith Stanfield - Steve, Manchester’s army buddy
• Ben Mendelsohn - Pastor Ron Smith
• Lily Collias - Lindsay Wainscott, Leigh’s daughter
• Melonie Diaz - Talana, Jeff Manchester’s ex-wife

Bottom line

Roofman (2025) mostly plays it straight because it can. Manchester’s story is already a white-knuckle chase with romance, oddball humor, and a bizarre domestic routine happening in the rafters of big-box stores. The tweaks are mostly to keep the movie tight and theatrical. If you like your true-crime with an actual pulse, this one delivers.

Roofman is in theaters worldwide. While you’re here, drop your favorite recent biopic in the comments — I’m taking notes.