Review: ‘Roofman’ — Warm Crime Drama Gets the Best From Channing Tatum

Note: this review essay begins with a brief look through the career of Roofman’s director Derek Cianfrance. If anybody wishes to skip this, the discussion of Roofman itself will begin beneath the first image.

Roofman’s writer/director Derek Cianfrance is in my opinion — aside from his mediocre 2016 adaptation of M. L. Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans, at least — quietly one of the best American directors currently working. While up to this point he has only helmed a small number of projects, each and every one of them (again, other than that 2016 work) is capable of leaving an indelible impression upon its viewers. They are also invariably miserable, an unsurprising side effect of what appears to be a strong influence from the great independent director John Cassavetes.

Cianfrance’s 2010 film Blue Valentine saw him explode onto the independent American film scene and immediately prove himself as an authorial voice to be reckoned with behind the camera. It’s an incredibly powerful film, documenting via an enticing cross-cutting structure both the beginning and the brutal ending of a long-term relationship between its two…