By Randal C. Hill
“I was never very good at life,” Jeffrey “The Roofman” Manchester once admitted.
After high school, he enlists in the Army and, as a paratrooper, learns to jump from great heights. He later marries and fathers two children. When his wife files for divorce, Manchester draws upon his military skills for a life of crime involving nine states and 40 businesses.
In his endeavors, he frequently drills through the roofs of closed restaurants — McDonald’s is a favorite— and jumps from the ceiling. Armed with a rifle and a tool bag, he is polite and soft-spoken to those he robs. After grabbing the cash, he herds the employees into a freezer, always making sure that they will be warm enough in there. Once he leaves the premises, Jeffrey phones the police to have them release the trapped workers.
Following his capture, he is sent to prison. However, he later manages to escape by hiding underneath a truck.
Manchester’s life of crime before prison is a riveting tale, but “The Roofman” focuses more on the time after that, when he escapes from prison and hides out for months in a Toys ‘R’ Us store. Eventually, he gains enough confidence to occasionally vacate his hiding place to attend a nearby church. Going by the name John Zorn, he befriends the pastor before meeting and falling in love with a divorced mother named Leigh from the congregation. They begin a relationship until the police show up at Leigh’s workplace to reveal her suitor’s true identity and arrest Jeffrey again.
Channing Tatum stars as the brilliant but errant miscreant. Kirsten Dunst shines as his love interest, and Peter Dinklage roils the plot pot as the store manager. Ben Mendelsohn, LaKeith Stanfield and Juno Temple round out a superlative supporting cast.
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Tatum says, “Jeffrey would be the first one to tell you that he had made some bad decisions in his life. But I find him such a beautiful and unfortunate soul.” Channing even once phoned Manchester at the prison where he’s housed.
(The real Jeffrey Manchester is due to leave prison in 2036 unless he escapes again.)
Paramount Pictures’ “The Roofman,” based on Manchester’s true story, opens October 10.
