I feel like I’ve seen this on stage before. That was my thought through a lot of The Outfit, a small-scale gangster movie by Graham Moore, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game, here making his directing debut. I was wrong, I was probably thinking of Jez Butterworth’s Mojo or some one-act I caught on a school theatre trip years ago –but this movie had such a similar feel, mostly in a good way. Contained to a single location and a small cast of characters, it’s a different, curious take on the gangster movie that feels like a lively piece of theatre transposed onto the big screen.
In plot it certainly follows some familiar tropes of the genre, the whole thing revolving around the identity of a ‘rat’, but these are matched with other more distinct flavours. Most notably, this is that rare mob movie told from the perspective of someone outside of but still inextricably linked to that world: Leonard Burling (Mark Rylance), an old English tailor (or cutter) who seems to be unwittingly operating a front in 1950s Chicago. His clientele is mainly made up of the local gangsters, who come in every so often to use a letterbox through which they receive communication from the Outfit –supposedly the national network of organized crime set up by Al Capone.
Moore and Rylance play very well the suspect inconspicuousness of Burling, who maintains the composure of a mild-mannered and timid old man, yet clearly has some hidden secret or concealed competence just under the surface. Whoever he is, and he’s only been in Chicago a short time, he’s not simply a gentleman business-owner, the very epitome of an English stereotype. There’s some good tension built into this, Moore fully aware his audience has an inkling of what’s up. At multiple junctures, it seems Burling may play his hand, especially when seemingly in the gravest danger. For the most part though he doesn’t, keeping up appearances yet asserting control in other more clever ways.
With exception of about twenty minutes of build-up, the story is set over a single night, and the aftermath of a violent confrontation between the Irish Boyle gang and the largely unseen African-American LaFontaines. The prize: a briefcase containing an FBI tape full of valuable information on the Chicago syndicate that was planted by some unknown informant. Retreating to Burling’s store are two of the Boyle men, the bosses’ loyal lieutenant Francis (Johnny Flynn) and overconfident son Ritchie (Dylan O’Brien), who has been wounded. And thus begins a careful stratagem on Burlings’ part to entrap the gangsters while keeping himself safe and secure from suspicion.
At one point after crudely stitching him up with sewing thread at gunpoint, Burling confesses to Richie that he is the rat –which both take as a joke moments later. It’s a tense, convincing scene that rings as either Burling letting the truth slip or the first of many manipulations. Whatever the case, it’s clear his motive is to bring down this crime family, and if he can’t do so physically he can at least attempt it psychologically. His first obvious gesture at this is when Francis returns and Burling insinuates Ritchie is just a little too concerned about the tape. Gradually things start to escalate, consequences give way to further cover-ups as events of the night have to be rewritten and Roy Boyle (Simon Russell Beale) himself gets involved; all the while Burling, never straying from his fearful demeanour, expertly pulls the strings.
The way he shrewdly manufactures confrontations as a delay tactic, plays off of the psychology and insecurities of his adversaries, it reminds me of Gandalf in The Hobbit tricking the trolls into arguing with one another until the sunrise comes to vanquish them. That very much is the same goal here and it’s fascinating to watch as new developments change the tactics, suspicions give way to actions and a series of bluffs. And yet even accounting for surprise, the plotting is perhaps a touch too intricate, too clean. It very much has that rhythm of the stage, everyone entering and exiting at just the most convenient moments for certain information or exposition. The dialogue sometimes plays as very proud of itself, and though the movie’s conceit and general architecture is unique, there’s not as much of that to the substance.
That said, the performances, though not exactly great (excepting Rylance), are enjoyable to watch. O’Brien and especially Flynn put on their wiseguy accents with an unearned but likeable confidence that is only matched by Beale attempting a kind of Irish Don Corleone voice (the film was shot in London which may account for all the Chicagoan-impersonating Brits). Nobody playing gangster is all that convincing, but there is a theatrical charm to their efforts nonetheless -the stage rarely being a place of good accents. Zoey Deutch is also part of it, playing Burling’s secretary and Richie’s girlfriend, but neither she nor Moore can quite shake her function as mere tension device, much as they may give her apparent narrative relevance. Deutch just doesn’t seem as involved as the other cast members, perhaps because of this.
There’s also issue with the ending, namely the aftermath of the main plot being resolved. The way the threads all come together is actually fairly satisfying, but Moore tacks on an anticlimax that serves just to unravel the last mysteries around Burling’s character. The stakes and action of the sequence feel shallow, the reveal unnecessary. Mystique is not an essential component to this character, but it is a very effective one –and Rylance plays it exceptionally. The specifics of his history though mildly interesting, would have been better left unsaid.
One thing I didn’t touch on is this movies’ attention to Burling’s trade, The Outfit of course being a title of a double, perhaps triple meaning. It loves its’ fine tailored suits, Burling’s narration in the early parts of the film touching on the subject heavily, and with allegorical attachment. On that theme I would say that The Outfit is rather dapper. Handsome, finely crafted, with maybe a loose thread here and there, a pattern in the lining that on close inspection isn’t terribly to taste; but serviceable, smart, and somewhat even fashionably intrepid, if not enough so to much stand out in a crowd.
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