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Mark Rylance again proves he is about as good as it gets as a tailor sucked into the Chicago crime scene of the 1950s in Oscar winner Graham Moore’s smart and clever thriller The Outfit, a movie that wears its title well on more than one level.
Having its world premiere today at the Berlin International Film Festival, the Focus Features pic will open domestically on March 18. Moore, who won an Adapted Screenplay Academy Award for The Imitation Game, makes his directorial debut here as well as co-writing the script with Jonathan McClain.
Most of the action is set in a Chicago tailor shop that is also a “drop spot” location for the local mob Boyle Crime Organization, run by feared senior boss Roy Boyle (Simon Russell Beale). Rylance, in a beautifully understated and pitch-perfect turn, plays veteran tailor Leonard Burling, who is the proprietor of the shop, working there with his assistant Mabel Sean (Zoe Deutch) — who has a darker side, as we later learn. He has moved from London’s Savile Row after the city is bombed out during WWII and looking to start over in America, but soon he finds a different kind of war zone in his new locale in the Windy City — famously home to a lot of gangsters in its storied history.
But he is loyal to his customers, and that includes Roy Boyle, even if the mob boss’ org uses the business for unsavory purposes and now is embroiled in a battle with another crime family, the La Fontaines. Working with Roy is his son and heir apparent, Richie (Dylan O’Brien), and the more opportunistic and lethal friend of Richie’s, Francis (Johnny Flynn), who has designs of his own on the organization even though he is not Boyle blood himself. When Richie goes missing, his father becomes concerned — and he should be as a cat and mouse game of sorts takes place, with Roy demanding answers and suspecting that someone among this den of thieves is a mole, or rat, as they term it. But who?
Maintaining an arm’s length to the inner-workings of this criminal enterprise, Leonard and Mabel must navigate each twist and turn as they become more increasingly drawn into warfare not of their own making. But does Leonard have something up his own sleeve? And just what is Mabel up to, her own connection to Francis and Richie not totally spelled out? To say more would be a crime unto itself.
Moore has crafted a literate and thrilling gangster picture that brings a fresh touch to a well-worn genre and is blessed to have Rylance, an Oscar winner for Bridge of Spies, expertly taking on his first major motion picture lead in a riveting performance that never shows its hand. Deutch is equally fine working with him. Celebrated British stage star Beale delivers a solid turn, and Flynn and O’Brien are appropriately combustible as well. As Mme. Violet La Fontaine, the French-Haitian head of the rival gang, Nikki Amuka-Bird is superb in a role that brings a Black female character into a genre where women, let alone women of color, rarely are spotlighted.
Gemma Jackson’s precise production design, Dick Popes solid lensing, the excellent costume design from Sophie O’Neill and Zac Posen and Alexandre Desplat’s pulsating score all add to the considerable ambiance on display in this exceptional and absorbing crime thriller. Amy Jackson, Ben Browning and Scoop Wasserstein are the producers.
Check out my video review at the link above. Do you plan to see The Outfit? Let us know what you think.
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