Roofman 4K UHD Review

Jeffrey Manchester burned down a dentist’s office, robbed over 40 stores at gunpoint, escaped prison, and most famously, lived in a Toys R Us for six months. All this aside, Manchester seems like a good guy. Really.

Roofman tells Manchester’s story, as portrayed by Channing Tatum, a military veteran who comes back home from service lost in society, unable to adapt. So he commits crimes. Crimes, however, he’s polite about.

Roofman successfully – and entertainingly – goes beyond the “how” and creates an empathetic understanding of the “why”

There’s a lot of humanizing Manchester in Roofman. Yes, it’s primarily about Manchester’s ingenuity and survival in trying to keep himself hidden from authorities, but also empathizes with a man who simply wants a sense of belonging. He’s confused, even lost, never understanding that people loved him, not the stuff he provides them. He feels emasculated by his inability to provide basics to his family, and thus robs fast food restaurants.

Director Derek Cianfrance sat down with the real Manchester for months to ensure he understood the man whose story was about to go on screen. Tatum takes to the role, his performance depicting a relentlessly intelligent individual, adept at avoiding detection.

If there’s a misstep in Roofman its the romance, a sluggishly told if crucial part of the Manchester story. For all of the fun presented by Roofman, Manchester’s relationship with a single mother (Kirsten Dunst) is organic with reasonable chemistry, but overcooked, sapping too much of the runtime without delivering in the way of story progress. Much as this helps build Manchester’s profile and audience understanding, it’s too often a slog.

Roofman doesn’t have greater purpose. While the first act suggests a lingering sense of communal loss post-service, Roofman doesn’t explore that any further. Rather, it’s a story about someone who did headline-making things, and creating an understanding of why some people do what they do. Desperation is too easy an answer, too clean as well. Manchester is a guy who simply wanted to do right for others, and lacked the means to do so and turned to breaking laws (even endangering others). With this context, Roofman successfully – and entertainingly – goes beyond the “how” and creates an empathetic understanding of the “why.” That was the right approach.

Shot on film, Roofman shows a mild grain structure at work, nicely overlaying texture onto the image. Sharpness isn’t brilliant or even impressive, but sufficient. Fidelity does stand out on occasion, notably in close. Mid-range shots lack the same firmness.

Color grading saps some life from the film stock, taking on a chillier overall palette. There’s life and vibrancy here though whether some of the vividness is drained by design. There are flashes of bold primaries and flesh tones maintain their basic integrity.

To go along with the reduced palette, black levels lose some of their zest. This doesn’t mean depth lags. Roofman produces dense imagery where it allows, and flashes of intense peak brightness show the Dolby Vision pass has power where needed.

Note the Blu-ray suffers some awful compression in comparison.

Paramount goes with Dolby TrueHD 5.1. Mostly driven by dialog, there are few opportunities to stretch the soundstage, but moments of ambiance do break from the stereos. Music will stretch into the rears often.

Surprisingly, the low-end is wonderfully supported by vehicle engines or again, the music. There’s more range to Roofman than expected and it’s great.

Paramount issues Roofman with a basic slate of five EPK featurettes and deleted/extended scenes.

Full disclosure: This Blu-ray was provided to us for review. This has not affected the editorial process. For information on how we handle review material, please visit our about us page to learn more.

The following six screen shots serve as samples for our subscription-exclusive set of 46 full resolution uncompressed 4K screen shots grabbed directly from the UHD: