India, Dec. 18 -- Roofman arrives as an unlikely entry in Derek Cianfrance's filmography - a filmmaker best known for bruised romances and moral unease - taking inspiration from a true-crime oddity that sounds almost fictional. Set in the mid-2000s, the film follows Manchester (Channing Tatum), a father struggling to re-enter civilian life after military service. Gifted with near-obsessive powers of observation, he channels that skill into a series of meticulously planned, non-violent robberies, entering fast-food restaurants through their roofs and treating employees with disarming .

When he is finally caught and handed a long prison sentence, Manchester engineers a daring escape and disappears - not into another city, but into the hidd...