Here’s a way to gauge what’s true about the alleged “true story” depicted in the new Channing Tatum crime comedy Roofman . Whenever your gut tells you, Okay, come on ... chances are it actually happened.

The hard part for writer-director Derek Cianfrance was toning it down. Too often, the story sounded either preposterous or contrived. “It happened all the time,” the filmmaker says. “If I wrote this as pure fiction, I’d be a terrible screenwriter.”

Was there really a North Carolina man named Jeffrey Manchester who was convicted of robbing 42 fast-food joints by tunneling into their rooftops overnight and sticking up the minimum-wage workers in the morning? Yes, that’s entirely true. The crime spree lasted two years and ended (temporarily) when the then 28-year-old was convict

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