Outfit, The (2022)

The scene is Chicago in the winter of 1953. Leonard Burling (Mark Rylance) is a self-effacing “cutter” who runs a small tailor’s shop with the assistance of his young secretary, Mable (Zoey Deutch). Many of the clients for his services are gangsters and the shop also functions as a rendezvous for a gang headed up by Roy Boyle (Simon Russell Beale) who believes that there’s a traitor in his crew. One night Boyle’s hot-headed son, Richie (Dylan O’Brien) and his father's right-hand man, Francis (Johnny Flynn) come to the shop to await the arrival of a tape which they expect will reveal the identity of the rat.

Although his film is very different in tone and setting it would be a good bet that director Moore made a close study of Reservoir Dogs in preparation for this his directorial debut. There is no finger-popping riffing on the crime genre but the film shares an underlying armature with Tarantino’s 1992 debut. Like that film The Outfit takes place on a single set over the course of a night as characters come and go and suspicion feeds on itself. 

Cleverly scripted by Moore (who won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar in 2015 for the sophisticated English WWII thriller The Imitation Game) the premise is simplicity itself but its development by Moore and his team irresistible. The pace never flags as the plot twists and turns creating palpable tension in this twilight underworld. Editor William Goldenberg and composer Alexandre Desplat make substantial contributions in this respect whilst the work of production designer Gemma Jackson and cinematographer Dick Pope, both English (as are Rylance, Beale and Flynn), something which no doubt helps to explain the very English look of the film.  

Rylance is perfect as the main protagonist, a character who we know from the outset will prove to be more than the diffident little man he initially appears to be. Leonard is in fact the quiet eye of a burgeoning storm that surrounds him his brief voice-over at the end of the film neatly evincing the stoicism.that underpins his story.

FYI:  Whilst an “outfit” is another term for a suit of clothes, 'The Outfit' of the film's title is a gangland presiding body as per the 1974 indie indie crime movie:The Outfit.

 

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