If you’re unaccustomed to seeing films described as ‘sturdy,’ it’s probably because they just don’t make ‘em like they used to. That old canard, with its ‘back in my day’ pessimism  and condescension, has lost plenty of its power through overuse, though the rolling of eyes at its mere intonation misses the trees for the forest. Movies aren’t qualitatively worse today so much as manufactured using flashier components, eventizing spectacle or plumbing the subconscious in search of heady revelation. The middle brow stuff has largely migrated to television, where a tasty set up and a charismatic star are still enough to drive viewership. Simple flicks built with durable parts are few and far between in 2025, making Roofman a counterintuitive proposition. You wouldn’t circle its release date on your calendar, but in a filmic landscape that seems to oscillate exclusively between saving the world or exploring the human condition, its breezy affectations make it a rarity.

Jeffrey Manchester (Channing Tatum) is a similarly singular individual, a walking contradiction whose observational brilliance and easy going kindness clash violently against short-sightedness and a flimsy grip on morality. An army veteran who’s fallen on tough times in suburban North Carolina, financial straits soon have our protagonist robbing a slew of local McDonalds to make ends meet, earning the titular moniker by virtue of his preferred entry method. The ensuing region-wide man hunt lands Manchester a 45 year prison sentence, though a nifty escape plan soon finds the burglar at large once again. Without a clear plan or timeline for an overseas getaway, the former infantry man holes up in a nearby Toys “R” Us, providing safe harbor while forcefully situating the viewer in the mid 2000’s state of mind.

And, honestly, it’s about damned time. The deluge of 90’s nostalgia content that met the turn of the century was quickly cast aside for cheeky 80’s remembrances, an aesthetic and tonal fealty that’s remained steadfast for the better part of two decades. As happy as we’ll all be to lap up Stranger Things 5 and the eventual, inevitable Top Gun: Maverick sequel, circling the drain on Reagan-era consumer culture has become exhausting. Roofman doesn’t rewrite the script so much as rehouse our collective wistfulness in a nearby location, cloaking itself in the lamentable clothes and sugary pop soundtrack of its time. Taking inspiration from Manchester’s contemporaneous real life crime spree, director/cowriter Derek Cianfrance didn’t actively select his movie’s chosen moment, but he’s sure keen on weaponizing its gaudy appeal. When a tertiary character, in an attempt to sell a used car, describes it as being constructed with the denser, more reliable materials of a bygone era, he isn’t just talking about the vehicle.

His appraisal is most applicable to the cast here, and Tatum in particular. Eons removed from the beefcake heartthrob mold that launched his career, the Magic Mike star has transformed into one of our steadiest headlining performers. Truer thespians exist in abundance, but precious few are as relaxed and equitable, capable of holding our hand through a meandering yarn without ever losing our sympathy. In a movie that’s ever invitingly retrograde, Tatum’s casual magnetism is an ace in the hole, though he’s got ample company in the supporting players. Kirsten Dunst, with whom Tatum’s character shares a largely chaste romance, may have the most to do, but Roofman fills even its most forgettable roles with name-brand actors, an aughts maneuver that’s since fallen by the wayside. Enlisting the likes of LaKeith Stanfield, Peter Dinklage, Ben Mendelsohn, and Juno Temple (among others) to prop up the ambling foibles of a matinee idol used to be common practice; in 2025, you wonder how they got so lucky.

Cianfrance must be quite the pied piper, a feature he shares with Manchester, though one hopes his paradigm is a bit more legible, and that proximity doesn’t breed quite so much danger. For all its low stakes posturing, Roofman can’t quite sand the edges off of its wouldbe hero, whose actions constantly put every passing acquaintance in harm’s way. Litigating a protagonist’s ethics is a great way to ruin a party, but the screenplay, co-written with Kirt Gunn, is too concerned with Manchester’s baseline likability, loudly extolling his virtues while hastily shrugging off the carnage in his wake. By refusing to examine the fallout of his many escapades, the film’s rendering of Manchester becomes nebulous, a misstep that’s bolstered by a level of intellect that’s impossible to pin down. Idiot savants surely walk among us, but Manchester’s fleeting genius and constant ingenuity are hard to reconcile with his bouts of uncut idiocy. Tatum goes a long way toward distracting from all the incongruity, but Roofman’s centrifugal force stops making sense under the lightest of scrutiny.

The same fate would seem to be waiting for Cianfrance, an angsty storyteller making an unforeseen pivot toward crowdpleasing merriment, but the last nine years must have been mellow. That’s how long it’s been since the helmer’s last theatrical release, 2016’s little seen The Light Between Oceans, which arrived on the heels of a tempestuously brooding double feature in Blue Valentine and The Place Beyond the Pines. Nothing about those latter two would suggest a facility with humor or a delicacy of thematic touch, but Roofman is a graceful piece of work, smoothly vacillating between movements and tones where its predecessors set up shop in exactly one ideological encampment. That would be the land of bad, and while his latest is mostly of a sunny disposition, Cianfrance still knows his way around a tense set-up, raising the temperature during Manchester’s many close calls with the law before subtly returning it to its more habitable home base. 

Retrenchment is the guiding light here, a return to a more down-the-middle form of filmmaking, but those in need of more ruminative sustenance will find it with some digging. That Manchester, a divorced father of two upon his arrest, immediately inserts himself into the familial unit of Dunst and her two daughters surely says something about the modern male condition, and the mega corporations that dot the narrative leer over everyone like a brawny, late capitalism antagonist. Roofman includes these motifs but is never about them, foregoing the term paper statement making of its contemporaries in favor of a gentle gesture. It’s the kind of modesty that lowers a flick’s ceiling while elevating its floor, a deal that sees lofty ambition as a worthy tradeoff for wide-reaching entertainment. That would be unfortunate in a vacuum, but Roofman lives in context, one in which basic levity and competency have been greatly deprioritized. It won’t make you see the world in a new light, but that’s someone else’s job. Tatum and Cianfrance just want to pick up, show you a nice time, and drop you back off before curfew. You know, like they used to.