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The Outfit review – Mark Rylance’s mob tailor makes the cut

The Oscar-winner gives a cool, calm centre to this tightly-buttoned drama about Chicago gangsters rooting out a mole

T he title has a double edge: it means a suit of clothes, and also the mob. US screenwriter and novelist Graham Moore won an Oscar for scripting The Imitation Game starring Benedict Cumberbatch as wartime codebreaker Alan Turing . Now he’s made his directing debut with his own co-written screenplay: an amusingly contrived single-location suspense thriller, full of twist and counter-twist, set in 1950s Chicago (the city of Moore’s birth). It sometimes feels like a more refined, more well-spoken and well-tailored version of Reservoir Dogs , with besuited gangsters turning guns on each other in an enclosed space and a shot tough guy seething in agony from his bullet wound. But it has a heavier tread than this: owing more, maybe, to Hitchcock’s Rope .

Mark Rylance provides a solid centre with a typically calm, coolly composed, quietly spoken performance, often giving us an opaque and unnerving twinkle of mischief. He plays Leonard, a British tailor who left his homeland (for shadowy reasons) with nothing but his tailor’s scissors, and set up shop in Chicago. The reason he’s been able to make a success of things is that he is almost solely patronised by the local gangsters: the ageing capo is Roy Boyle (Simon Russell Beale), who runs this turf with his unreliable hothead son, Richie (Dylan O’Brien); Richie is snarlingly resentful that his old man now favours a smooth new lieutenant, Francis (Johnny Flynn).

These bad-mannered gangsters often order fancy suits from Leonard, but use his shop’s backroom as an HQ and hangout. Poor, sensitive Leonard has to quietly accept their boozy bullying (he’s actually fond of a drink himself) and get on with the trade about which he is passionate. It has given him a skill in sizing up men’s bodies and also their souls: he knows from the way they carry themselves what sort of people they are, and how to dress them. Leonard has a fatherly concern for his secretary, Mable (a nice performance from Zoey Deutch), who is keeping secrets from him. Things go terribly wrong when a rat in Roy Boyle’s organisation is suspected of selling them out to a rival gang and also the FBI, which has been tape-recording incriminating conversations using a device concealed with the rat’s help. Now the guys have managed to get hold of one of these tapes, and if they can play it, they will discover the bug’s location and get a fix on the rat’s identity. But what if the rat is higher up than anyone thinks?

In truth, the “tape” MacGuffin is a bit laboured, and the whole movie seems sometimes to be moving at about 80–90% of its required speed and energy. And there is also something stylised and slightly non-realistic about the way the nationwide mob is imagined to be an occult secret organisation called “the Outfit”, slightly different from the Cosa Nostra we already know about. But there is also a theatrical charm and composure to the performances (and once again, it’s time to marvel at the way Brit actors such as Beale and Flynn get to play Chicago tough guys). We know that these soldiers of crime are underestimating humble civilian Leonard, but it remains for us to find out what has actually been going on. It’s an entertaining, fairly overwrought piece, a little tightly buttoned.

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• Period and historical films
• Mark Rylance
• Simon Russell Beale
• Johnny Flynn
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Movies rarely come as chic as “ The Outfit ,” a thrifty, continually unpredictable whodunit, fashioned with the same meticulousness found in the bones of a deceptively simple suit. (If you will pardon the immediate puns.) It’s surprising that this is writer Graham Moore ’s first cinematic get-up since his polished WWII thriller “ The Imitation Game ” deservedly won him the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar in 2015. Here, he also assumes the directing duties for the first time and with poise, cutting and sewing an understated single-location nail-biter with the same diligence he brought onto his aforesaid award-winner.

Indeed, Moore and his co-writer Johnathan McClain work wonders with the script of “The Outfit” through a gradually thickening plot that rarely shows its seams. It’s a mazelike puzzle of a film, one that swiftly invites the audience in for an involved round of Cluedo unraveling inside an intimate, handsomely smoky Chicago outfitter dressing its wealthy clientele in the 1950s. The master behind the small yet exclusive bespoke is Leonard Burling ( Mark Rylance , as unnervingly stiff-upper-lipped and poker-faced as he was in “ Bridge of Spies ”), a Savile Row-trained cutter who’s left his London home for The States after the WWII. The Nazis were obviously the chief reason for his departure; blue jeans (even though they weren’t quite an established thing then) that threatened to put him out of business, as he says, was another. But the maestro sartor found his groove back in his Windy City atelier against the odds, after some secret tragedy. As long as you don’t call him a tailor—what is he, someone who just hems trousers and fixes buttons?—and refer to him accurately as a cutter, all will be well.

On the surface, such semantics seem to be the biggest drama in Burling’s predictable life, spent mostly in an exquisitely detailed backroom (dressed with the magical touch of production designer Gemma Jackson in earthy tones of creams, camels and browns), around a cutting table which Burling treats like an operation bed as he works with rolls of deluxe fabric with surgical precision. (In one of the film’s most involving sequences later, this reference comes to literal fruition during a few stunning minutes of tension.)

But it doesn’t take long for us to realize that the old artisan is mixed up with a lot more than stitches and cutting patterns. Gangsters, particularly the Boyle family— Simon Russell Beale ’s seemingly temperate boss Roy, his spoiled son Richie (Dylan O’Brien) and their inside men Francis ( Johnny Flynn ) and Monk ( Alan Mehdizadeh )—populate his joint frequently, using his workshop as a safe communication hub to drop messages and packages for their crime family members. Burling keeps a low profile and minds his own business alongside these crooked comings and goings, trying to set a father-figure example for his shop assistant Mable (a terrific Zoey Deutch ), whom he sees as a daughter. But he seems a lot more than he admits. Meanwhile, sporting both a girl-next-door innocence and a sense of femme-fatale slyness, the complex Mable has her own plans. She can’t wait to get out of Chicago and maybe head for Paris. And she seems to be committed to doing whatever it takes for her dreams.

If only all could stay as smooth and operational as the film’s opening act. But as the pieces trickle in over the course of a day or so (and again, in one single location), we find out about a rivaling crime family, an elite crime organization called “the outfit” that Boyles want to become a part of as well as a possible rat, recording incriminating conversations on a new thing called a cassette and passing them onto the FBI. What could possibly go wrong when things like murder, money and romantic stakes are involved?

Part of the fun of “The Outfit” is its continually self-renewing demeanor that will keep the viewers guessing until its final moment. And it’s simply splendid to observe Graham in the director’s chair, orchestrating the film’s mysteries with a watchful eye. Indeed, what could have been a stage play turns into something magically cinematic in his hands—there is a lot of detail in what Moore chooses to show versus hide, which face he focuses on and how he goes about blocking his scenes. Equally impressive are the film’s costumes, crafted with dizzying period accuracy by Sophie O’Neill and the famous fashion designer Zac Posen . In the end, you leave “The Outfit” feeling like you have seen something rich, ravishing, and sumptuous. For a film that goes about its business through such limited resources, that’s quite a triumph.

Now playing in theaters.

Tomris Laffly

Tomris Laffly is a freelance film writer and critic based in New York. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), she regularly contributes to  RogerEbert.com , Variety and Time Out New York, with bylines in Filmmaker Magazine, Film Journal International, Vulture, The Playlist and The Wrap, among other outlets.

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Film credits.

The Outfit (2022)

Rated R for some bloody violence, and language throughout.

106 minutes

Mark Rylance as Leonard

Zoey Deutch as Mable

Dylan O'Brien as Richie

Johnny Flynn as Francis

Nikki Amuka-Bird as Violet

Simon Russell Beale as Roy

Alan Mehdizadeh as Monk

• Graham Moore
• Johnathan McClain

Cinematographer

• William Goldenberg
• Alexandre Desplat

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The Outfit movie review: Mark Rylance gives an extraordinary performance in this gangster thriller

Mark Rylance recently implied that being in movies isn’t much cop (he said acting in the theatre was a “thousand times more enjoyable”). Which adds another layer to his extraordinary performance in this American gangster thriller. The 62-year-old British legend doesn’t look bored. He seems to be having the time of his life.

In 1950s Chicago, working-class Brit Leonard, aka “English” (Rylance), tenderly creates suits for macho mobsters. Ingratiating and Savile Row-trained, Leonard ensures the hoodlums are dressed to kill. They keep his business afloat and, by the by, use his tiny shop as a safe drop-off point for money and mysterious packages.

One of these packages tips off two young hoods - Richie (Dylan O’Brien) and Francis (Johnny Flynn) - that their organisation contains a “rat”. Over the course of a long, snowy night, a bloody game of cat and mouse ensues with the players including Leonard, Richie and Francis. alongside Leonard’s poised, smart and bitter secretary Mable (Zoey Deutch) and Richie’s kingpin dad, Roy ( Simon Russell Beale ). The action is all but totally confined to the shop’s three rooms. Who – if anyone – will make it out alive?

The Outfit is a bit like Jane Campion’s sublimely weird Western, The Power of the Dog , only in reverse. Benedict Cumberbatch’s character starts out hard and gets softer. That’s not what happens, here. Suffice to say, what Leonard has up his immaculately cut sleeves made my jaw drop.

Rylance’s tour de force, though frequently devastating, spills over with giddy humour. Our hero’s eyes are as twinkly as those of The Fast Show tailors, Ken and Kenneth. It’s positively surprising that Leonard never says “Suits you Sir!”

Beale, on the other hand, doesn’t have a huge amount to do and initially struggles with the Chicago accent. The death of this great English actor’s dignity, for a while, seems imminent - but the crisis is averted and he and Rylance share a riveting scene where an on-edge Roy and Leonard handle each other’s tools. Flynn is solid; so are Deutch and Nikki Amuka-Bird (in a small but crucial role).

The Outfit’s director and co-writer is Graham Moore, whose screenplay for The Imitation Game won him an Oscar. Born and raised in Chicago, Moore is obviously fascinated by the British class system. Here, he cleverly subverts all sorts of clichés concerning what it means to be English, but ironically he’s on more wobbly ground when it comes to the Yanks. Every time Richie opened his mouth I wanted to yell “Shush!” Just for once, could the first-born son of an alpha male NOT be a spoilt, weak, insecure hot-head? Sonny Corleone is one of the best characters in movie history, but his clones are a drag.

Several of the plot twists, too, are creaky, and the visuals a tad stagey. The atmosphere’s meant to be claustrophobic, but sometimes we just feel hemmed in (though to be fair, The Outfit was shot during the pandemic).

Still, don’t pass up the chance to meet Leonard. Rylance’s film career, launched by Bridge of Spies , is going through an especially brilliant patch. He’s the leading man in droll biopic The Phantom of the Open (out next month) and he’s in the new Terrence Malick. Rylance’s heart may belong to the theatre, but the camera adores him. The old faker... he’s in a class of his own.

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‘The Outfit’ Review: Mark Rylance Makes Clothes for Killers in Smart but Subdued Mobster Drama

Sure, Graham Moore's directorial debut is stylish, but it's the way he lets the performances shine that impresses most about this well-made gangster picture.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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It’s hard to imagine anyone better suited than Mark Rylance to the lead role of Graham Moore ’s “ The Outfit ” — the story of a Savile Row tailor (technically a “cutter,” but we’ll come back to that) who works more or less exclusively for an Irish mobster in 1956 Chicago. Rylance’s character, Leonard Burling, knows the rules: You keep your head down and your mouth shut, and in return, you’re treated almost like family by the Boyle clan. And if you don’t, well, we’ve all seen enough gangster pictures to know the consequences.

Leonard hardly ever leaves his workshop, and neither do we, in “The Outfit,” a contained, almost play-like film noir the likes of which John Huston and Nicholas Ray were making in the early ’50s. (To reinforce that connection visually, production designer Gemma Jackson has dialed down the palette to mostly browns and grays, while DP Dick Pope employs a single strong ceiling light — shaped almost like an open casket — that leaves much of Leonard’s atelier in shadows.)

Today, of course, this is yet another example of the COVID-era trend of drawing a handful of characters into a single location where some kind of crime takes place. But Moore, who won an Oscar for his sensitive “The Imitation Game” script, is a much better writer than the hacks behind most of those pandemic quickies, assembling “The Outfit” as a strategic guessing game, à la “Deathtrap” or “Sleuth,” when Leonard’s workspace becomes a boiler room of sorts after a late-night shootout. There’s a rat somewhere in the Boyle ranks, and that person’s identity will be uncovered in Leonard’s shop. If you’re picturing shades of Kubrick’s “The Killing,” but with better clothes, fewer bullets and a self-effacing English fellow quietly trying to defuse the situation, you wouldn’t be far off.

From these familiar elements, Moore has fashioned a smart little thriller — and a decent canvas on which to hone his directorial skills. The most original thing about “The Outfit” is Moore’s decision to focus on a former Savile Row “cutter.” That word is more expansive than “tailor,” we learn, describing someone who creates entire wardrobes, as opposed to specializing in just one garment. “Cutter” also sounds more dangerous, and though Leonard comes across impossibly mild-mannered at first, one look at his trusty pair of shears will have most audiences trying to guess who and how they’ll be used to stab later in the film.

Chances are, Leonard must have other clients beyond Roy Boyle (Simon Russell Beale) and his gang, though we don’t see many — apart from an early measuring-up montage in which we learn how a bespoke suit fits different personality types. “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” graduate Sophie O’Neill and fashion designer Zac Posen supply the duds, which aren’t flashy or attention-grabbing, the way Brian De Palma’s Armani-clad “Untouchables” ensembles were, but they reflect the care of handcraftsmanship — even in fragments, as Moore shows Rylance assembling them from scratch.

Leonard’s shop doubles as the drop spot for Boyle’s dealings. Men with broad shoulders, square jaws and large overcoats file through, leaving thick envelopes in a box on the wall, seldom staying long enough to remove their hats. Leonard acts as though it’s all perfectly normal, a silent keeper of secrets who seems interested in little other than his trade. “This isn’t art. It’s a craft,” he tells us in voiceover. Leonard’s narration can be deliberately deceptive at times, slyly hiding dimensions of his personality even as it reveals others (he is a man of few words, after all). He is not Keyser Söze, though audiences could be forgiven for assuming something similar.

Not long after Roy’s blockhead son Richie (Dylan O’Brien) and top gun Francis (Johnny Flynn) come stumbling into the shop, the former gut-shot, the latter waving his piece about like he intends to use it, Leonard takes a calculated risk. First he stitches up Richie — in a scene that’s about as wince-inducing as it sounds — and then he tells the none-too-bright Boyle scion, “I’m the rat. I’ve been selling information to your enemies, and I let the feds plant their bug.” Is he bluffing? Or else joking perhaps? Leonard seems like an honorable man, but he’s got that dry British quality that can be difficult to read. Moore milks the ambiguity for all it’s worth, since Rylance’s range is such that he could really be nothing more than this low-blood-pressure butler type, and yet, we can also picture him spraying the room with a Tommy gun, if the situation required it.

Moore has said that the idea for “The Outfit” came from reading a report that the first taped evidence collected by the feds in a big organized crime case was taken from bugs planted in a Chicago tailor shop. This is not a re-creation of that episode, though the detail triggered Moore’s imagination — he co-wrote this script with Johnathan McClain — and sent the pair down a winding trail of manipulation and mind games. It also supplied them with the double-entendre of the film’s title: Here, a maker of outfits finds himself caught in the midst of a massive power struggle, as onetime Boyle allies begin to suspect one another and an off-screen gang war erupts, ordered by a shadowy underworld organization known as “the Outfit.”

Despite being a mostly masculine story, the ensemble does include two women: Leonard’s danger-loving assistant, Mable (Zoey Deutch, whose modern air feels slightly out of place), and a rival crime boss (Nikki Amuka-Bird) from the LaFontaine clan, who drops by before the evening’s done. Looking fit in his fedora, Flynn adapts well to the period setting, as does Beale — which should surprise no one, given his Royal Shakespeare Company chops. But this is clearly Rylance’s film to shape, which he does by seemingly diminishing himself in the others’ presence. It’s an old Lee Strasberg acting trick: Let the other characters make thunder, then steal the film out from under them through one’s reactions. Rylance can go big, as he does in “Don’t Look Up” and “The Phantom of the Open,” but a role like this fits him best.

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2022, Mystery & thriller/Crime, 1h 45m

What to know

Critics Consensus

The Outfit isn't flashy, but a solid story and Mark Rylance's tightly tailored performance make this a comfortable fit for fans of old-school thrillers. Read critic reviews

Audience Says

Simple but effective, The Outfit uses great performances and a smart, twist-filled plot to generate satisfying spy thrills. Read audience reviews

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The outfit videos, the outfit   photos.

From the Academy Award-winning writer of The Imitation Game (Graham Moore) comes The Outfit, a gripping and masterful thriller in which an expert tailor (Academy Award winner Mark Rylance) must outwit a dangerous group of mobsters in order to survive a fateful night.

Rating: R (Some Bloody Violence|Language Throughout)

Genre: Mystery & thriller, Crime, Drama

Original Language: English

Director: Graham Moore

Producer: Ben Browning , Amy Jackson , Scoop Wasserstein

Writer: Graham Moore , Johnathan McClain

Release Date (Theaters): Mar 18, 2022  wide

Release Date (Streaming): May 3, 2022

Box Office (Gross USA): $3.3M

Runtime: 1h 45m

Distributor: Focus Features

Production Co: Unified Theory, Focus Features, Scoop Productions, FilmNation Entertainment

Sound Mix: Dolby Digital, Stereo

Cast & Crew

Mark Rylance

Dylan O'Brien

Zoey Deutch

Johnny Flynn

Nikki Amuka-Bird

Simon Russell Beale

Alan Mehdizadeh

Graham Moore

Screenwriter

Johnathan McClain

Ben Browning

Amy Jackson

Scoop Wasserstein

Alison Cohen

Executive Producer

Milan Popelka

Cinematographer

William Goldenberg

Film Editor

Alexandre Desplat

Original Music

Gemma Jackson

Production Design

Tonja Schurmann

Set Decoration

Costume Designer

Sophie O'Neill

Brad Zimmerman

News & Interviews for The Outfit

New on Prime Video and Freevee in September 2022

Weekend Box Office Results: The Batman Reaches $300 Million

Critic Reviews for The Outfit

Audience reviews for the outfit.

A neatly tailored script and seamless performances make The Outfit a grade A watch. Graham Moore, who wrote The Imitation Game, gets his first crack at directing and does a nice job with the material which is confined to one set.

Very old fashioned and theatrical (which definitely isn't a bad thing) but it feels a tad overwritten, which is probably to disguise how predicable it gets. However Rylance makes it worth a viewing.

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‘The Outfit’ Review: The Violent Measure of a Man

In this gangster exercise set in 1956 Chicago, Mark Rylance plays a tailor who has very large scissors and some sharp moves.

• Share full article

By Manohla Dargis

The gangsters in “The Outfit” have plenty of tough moves, but none of these guys hold the screen like Mark Rylance when he just stands or stares — or sews. His character, Leonard, is a bespoke tailor who once worked on Savile Row and now practices his trade in an unassuming shop in Chicago. There, he snips and stitches with a bowed head and delicate, precisely articulated movements that express the beauty and grace of Rylance’s art.

Sometimes, all you need in a movie is a great actor — well, almost all. Certainly Rylance’s presence enriches “The Outfit,” a moderately amusing gangster flick that doesn’t make a great deal of sense. It’s a nostalgia-infused genre exercise set in 1956 that centers on Leonard, who, having left London after the war, now makes suits for a clientele that includes underworld types, some of whom use his shop for business. Day after day, he works in his somber, claustrophobic store while dodgy types parade in and out, dropping envelopes in a locked box. Like the box, Leonard is a mystery that the movie teases out one hint at a time.

Leonard takes longer to open, although the box’s contents are central to the puzzle that also involves a clandestine recording, a secret romance, rampaging rival crews and the larger mysterious criminal enterprise that gives the movie its title. There’s also Leonard’s employee, Mabel (Zoey Deutch), one of two women in the mix; Nikki Amuka-Bird also pops in as a glamorous villain. For the most part, Mabel is around to greet the customers and brighten up the store’s gloomy interior: She smiles at one villain (Dylan O’Brien), gives the cold shoulder to another (Johnny Flynn) and so on.

The director Graham Moore and his screenwriting partner, Johnathan McClain, move their limited pieces around, spill the requisite blood and modestly complicate the proceedings. The story is self-aware, chatty and thin; it plays out as an extended cat-and-mouse, though who’s who in this particular duet shifts over time, if not all that surprisingly. Mostly, the movie seems like it was concocted by a couple of cinephiles who wanted to play with genre for genre’s sake. And why not? That’s as fine a reason as any to dust off some fedoras and hire actors of varying abilities for some retro American gangster cosplay on a British soundstage.

“The Outfit” basically consists of characters moving in, out and through the store’s two main rooms, spatial limitations that can feel stagy and be tricky to manage. This is Moore’s feature directing debut (he wrote “The Imitation Game”) but, working with the director of photography Dick Pope, he handles the space thoughtfully. With a muted palette, shifts in the depth of field and complementary staging and camera moves, Moore and Pope map the store’s (and story’s) geography from different vantage points. And, in sync with Rylance’s finely calibrated performance, they insure Leonard remains the visual axis.

Rylance put on a fright wig to play William Kunstler in “The Trial of the Chicago 7” and wore Mr. Ed-size choppers for his role as the eccentric zillionaire in “ Don’t Look Up .” But he’s a master of restraint and he doesn’t need accessories to hold you as he proved with his mesmerizing turn in Steven Spielberg’s Cold War drama “ Bridge of Spies .” Rylance’s role here isn’t as rich, but one of the attractions of “The Outfit” is that it allows him to etch his character in pockets of filigreed solitude. Leonard’s focused yet effortless meticulousness when he works — how his hands smooth the fabric and control his enormous shears — define this man more than any line of dialogue. You also get to see Rylance engaging with a worthy foil.

That would be Simon Russell Beale, who plays Roy, a gangland boss. Roy enters about midway through the movie. By then, bullets have been fired and blood has splashed across the floor, developments that are nowhere as ominous or tense as watching Leonard and Roy have a polite little talk in the back. Beale has the more overtly showy role. But like Rylance, he builds his characters through meticulously orchestrated moderation — vocal and physical — that faint smile by smile, hushed word by word, shifts the very particles in the air. Together, Rylance and Beale create a little world and a movie within a movie that’s worth watching.

The Outfit Rated R for gun violence and language. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters.

Manohla Dargis has been the co-chief film critic since 2004. She started writing about movies professionally in 1987 while earning her M.A. in cinema studies at New York University, and her work has been anthologized in several books. More about Manohla Dargis

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• Entertainment
• <i>The Outfit</i> Is a Pleasing, Wicked Little Thriller Rendered in Tones of Muted Flannel

The Outfit Is a Pleasing, Wicked Little Thriller Rendered in Tones of Muted Flannel

T he pleasures of writer-director Graham Moore’s intimate little crime thriller The Outfit sneak up on you with the same glissando shiver that you feel when you slip on a silk-lined coat. Much of the story unfolds between lines of dialogue, in furtive glances between characters, or in clever feats of magician-like misdirection. The movie’s star, Mark Rylance —as Leonard Burling, a skilled but humble English tailor—is adept at actorly sleight of hand, gradually revealing his character’s secrets in slivers of dry, wicked wit.

Read more reviews by Stephanie Zacharek

It’s 1956 Chicago, where the Savile Row–trained Leonard now runs his own shop, making fine suits for a clientele heavy on high-ranking gangsters. Though Leonard allows his workspace to be used as a sort of message center for the mob, he keeps his head down and his nose clean, focusing mostly on turning out meticulously worked buttonholes, or cutting through swaths of wool with his treasured shears. His loyal receptionist, Mable (Zoey Deutch), a bright young woman who longs to see the world beyond her stifling city, may or may not be having a romance with junior mobster Richie (Dylan O’Brien), the son of big boss Roy (Simon Russell Beale). And wherever Richie goes, his ambitious and hotheaded sidekick Francis ( Johnny Flynn ) goes too, stirring up trouble with every step.

At the center of this clever pinwheel of a story—Moore co-wrote the script with Johnathan McClain—is Rylance, whose economy of motion and emotion is a marvel. As he sits quietly and watchfully sewing a sleeve hem, you believe in every stitch—Rylance shows how Leonard’s confidence in his work ripples through him like electricity, reaching right through his fingertips. At times Rylance’s Leonard has the eyes of an anxious terrier, wary and alert. His gaze softens when Mable is around: she’s a kind of surrogate daughter to him, a jewel worth protecting. Nearly all the action in The Outfit takes place inside Leonard’s shop, a cozy lair shot in muted-flannel tones of gray and gold, but Rylance fills the space with subtle grandeur. Every movement, every breath, is made to measure. How can we ever go back to off-the-rack?

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Movie Reviews

Review: 'the outfit' is tailor-made to keep audiences guessing.

Bob Mondello

Though the new thriller The Outfit is set in a tailor's shop in 1950s Chicago, it's not about the outfits he makes — but about an underworld consortium his gangster customers hope to join.

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

The intimate new thriller "The Outfit" is set in a tailor shop, but the film is not about the outfits he makes. It's about an underworld group his gangster customers hope to join. Critic Bob Mondello says "The Outfit" is tailor-made to keep audiences guessing.

BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Chicago, 1956 - a rundown section of town that seems an unlikely spot for the masterly suit-making art of Leonard Burling.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE OUTFIT")

MARK RYLANCE: (As Leonard) This isn't art. This is a craft.

MONDELLO: I stand corrected. But in that case, Burling is a superb craftsman. We watch him chalking and cutting fabric, stitching linings, turning bolts of tweed and silk into garments that give his customers broad shoulders, make them stand taller.

RYLANCE: (As Leonard) You cannot make something good until you understand your customer.

MONDELLO: Ah, but these particular customers who tuck guns in their waistbands and show up when sirens wail. Burling may keep his thoughts to himself, but he notices and he worries about their effect on his receptionist, Mable, played by Zoey Deutch, much to her annoyance.

ZOEY DEUTCH: (As Mable) I do not need you telling me who to date.

RYLANCE: (As Leonard) I didn't mean it like that.

DEUTCH: (As Mable) You meant it like, I saw you smiling at Richie Boyle earlier, and now I'm petrified that you're running with a bad batch.

RYLANCE: (As Leonard) Those men may be customers, but they are not gentlemen.

DEUTCH: (As Mable) Could have fooled me in those nice clothes you make for them.

RYLANCE: (As Leonard) If we only allowed angels to be customers, then we'd have no customers at all.

DEUTCH: (As Mable) Do we let all of our customers keep black boxes in back?

MONDELLO: Burling has made his peace with the lockbox. The Boyle crime family uses it for messages, and there's been increased traffic of late something about a rival LaFontaine family, African American gangsters running numbers and a mysterious recording. And then one night...

RYLANCE: (As Leonard) Please. I don't want any trouble.

MONDELLO: ...Richie Boyle bleeding profusely, and his father's enforcer clutching a tape.

JOHNNY FLYNN: (As Francis) There are a thousand blue boys out there hunting for this. And if they find it, I start shooting. You follow? Making matters worse, there are a thousand racket boys hunting for it too, and if they find it, they start shooting. You follow?

MONDELLO: Even in a gang war, Francis, the enforcer, and Richie are skeptical of each other. But it's Francis's job to keep Richie alive. And here's this guy, Burling, who's good with a needle and thread.

FLYNN: (As Francis) Sew him up.

RYLANCE: (As Leonard) What? I can't.

MONDELLO: So all of this is set up for a game of gangster cat and mouse in which you're never quite sure who's the cat. Director and co-writer Graham Moore has constructed "The Outfit" as a pressure cooker who-done-what and tailored it specifically to suit its leading man, Mark Rylance, and his most threatening customer, Simon Russell Beale, both of whom are nuanced stage performers. The action is confined to the shop's interior, almost as if it were a theatre set, with the close confines helping build the pressure and focus your attention on, say, a snag in a plan or fraying nerves. Burling keeps saying he's not a tailor; tailors sew on buttons. Then he says what he actually is.

RYLANCE: (As Leonard) I studied for decades to be a cutter.

MONDELLO: Meaning he cuts the cloth and creates whole garments. But as the gangsters' plans come unraveled, you'll find yourself wondering how else he might use his shears. Actor Rylance wields them expertly, having prepared to play this role by studying with cutters on London's Savile Row. He learned his craft well enough that he made the suit he wears in the film, wears with studied cool, let's note, as his character's life and several others hang by a thread.

RYLANCE: (As Leonard) Fashionable things - they don't last. The things I make, like that suit of yours - it's timeless.

MONDELLO: You might also say that about Rylance's performance, which is a cut above in "The Outfit." I'm Bob Mondello.

(SOUNDBITE OF KARAVELO'S "MY GIRL")

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