“The Outfit” is a marvel of a movie. Its simplicity of structure is augmented by a deftly written screenplay with unexpected twists. What could have been a standard gangster film is transformed into a character study and the assumptions we make in our everyday lives.
The action starts in 1956 Chicago at the shop of Leonard (Mark Rylance) who runs a bespoke suit shop. Other than a few exterior shots of the establishment, the film is entirely set inside the store.

Leonard left London to come to Chicago (pronounced by him with a hard “Ch”), ostensibly because of the rise of popularity of blue jeans. We see him with his beloved shears. He tells people that he is more than a simple tailor: he is a “cutter,” trained on Saville Row. After his apprenticeship there, he opened his own shop before leaving for the United States.
His assistant Mabel (Zoey Deutch) collects snow globes that depict various places around the world where she would like to visit. She has a crush on Richie (Dylan O’Brien), the son of a local gangster, Roy (Simon Russell Beale).

There is a box in the back with a slot in the top. Various people come to drop off envelopes into the enclosure. Richie and his father’s right-hand man Francis (Johnny Flynn) come to collect the mysterious contents.

There is palpable tension between the two mobsters. Francis saved Roy during the war and earned his undying gratitude. Richie as Roy’s son feels that he should be entrusted with more responsibility, if not become the heir apparent to his father’s organization.
One day an envelope comes out of the box with a geometric marking on the face. It turns out that this is a symbol of the Outfit, a coast-to-coast network of gang organizations. Roy is anxious to be admitted to this group.

We see customers and envelope-depositing dubious characters come and go. Then one night Francis comes in with a wounded Richie. There has been a shootout with a rival gang, and Richie took a bullet to the abdomen.

The fight was over a cassette tape that might contain incriminating information about Roy’s organization on it. They got the tape but not without a struggle.

Francis encourages Leonard to do a quick stitching job on Richie. After Francis leaves to reconnoiter and Richie revives, Leonard talks to the latter while he sews a garment. When Francis returns, suspicions are raised and things start to go south very rapidly.

This is a difficult picture to review in that the surprising turns of events that ensue cannot be revealed without ruining the outcome for viewers. When they occur, they are not melodramatically told, but rather exposed with subtlety.

There were elements in the movie that reminded me of both a British cozy mystery and a closed-room mystery. In this case, the violence, while mostly off-screen, seems a little intense for a cozy. As for the closed-room mystery, people do come to and from the shop. But all the action takes place in the intimacy of a small setting, the suit store.

Most of the intimate moments revolve around conversations with Leonard. Whether it is Roy talking about his beginnings or Richie bantering about his life, these make the characters very human. There is nothing forced or phony about these exchanges.

One of the highlights of the film is the realization that while we think we know who a person is by their position and everyday conversation, our knowledge only goes so far. This not only extends to facts about a person’s life, but also to their motivations and ambitions. The masterful script and powerful acting performances, in particular by Rylance, go a long way in successfully addressing this theme.

The screenplay is so good at being a work of legerdemain and misdirection. In retrospect you realize that you were provided some clues whose import was not immediately apparent. I thoroughly enjoyed being misled in making the wrong conclusion.

The sets and costumes are top-notch. You would expect the suits in a picture set in a bespoke shop to be outstanding, and the costume designer does not disappoint. Anyone who can accumulate that many geographical snow globes is a force to be reckoned with in props. I thought that I would come out of the film with more knowledge about tailoring and was duly satisfied.

What can one say about Mark Rylance’s performance? It is simply a tour de force. His use of physicality to portray his emotions is an acting class in and of itself. His performances often seem understated to me but this is part of his talent.

The other acting performances are not quite at Rylance’s level, but to be fair he has more to work with being the center of the story. They nevertheless are strong and powerful in their own right.

The denouement, while unexpected, fits integrally into the rest of the movie. I was very pleased by this last part of the screenplay.

I would not recommend this for children because it is too talky for them to sit still through. This is not an action film. I think that most teens would be disinterested in a story set in such a now-distant time and involving making suits.

But for true movie-lovers, this is an unexpected treat. It merits re-viewing as well.

Four and a half out of five stars

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.

Cast: Mark Rylance, Zoey Deutch, Johnny Flynn, Dylan O’Brien, Nikki Amuka-Bird, and Simon Russell Beale
Director: Graham Moore
Writer: Graham Moore