Netflix has been a little light on thrillers for the last few months, but The Outfit is bringing some life to the genre in November.
First-time director Graham Moore cowrote the script with Johnathan McClain, which is a crime thriller set in Chicago during the ’50s.
Mark Rylance leads the cast as Leonard Burling, an English tailor whose primary clientele is the Irish mob. And one night, their world comes crashing into his.
To celebrate the film’s arrival on Netflix, Watch With Us is sharing three reasons to watch The Outfit in November.
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It Unfolds Like a Stage Play
Although Moore previously wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for The Imitation Game, The Outfit feels like it was born out of a stage play rather than a conventional script. Almost the entire film takes place in and around Leonard’s tailor shop, with people coming and going. That decision may have been driven by budget limitations, but the limited sets give the film a unique identity in the thriller genre.
The Outfit‘s single location also lent itself to hiding clues in plain sight. A jacket hanging on a coat hanger becomes a plot point, and the ending of the film reveals the recipient of a suit that Leonard assembles during the movie. Those are the kind of things that would have worked really well on a stage. And they’re used effectively here.
Mark Rylance Gives a Standout Performance
There are some very good performances in the movie, particularly by Johnny Flynn, Dylan O’Brien and Simon Russell Beale, but it’s Rylance who carries the movie on his shoulders. He initially plays Leonard as a victim of circumstance when Francis (Flynn) comes through his door with a badly injured Richie Boyle (O’Brien). Yet as things calm down, Leonard seems to have a knack for turning these two mobsters against each other.
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It takes a while for the audience to understand what Leonard is trying to do, since the game he’s playing has life or death stakes. Rylance also portrays Leonard as having a soft spot for Richie’s girlfriend, Mable Shaun (Zoey Deutch), and respect for Richie’s crime lord father, Roy Boyle (Beale). All of these relationships play out in front of the audience, and some for the final time.
‘The Outfit’ Raises the Tension Throughout the Film
If we spent too much time talking about the plot of The Outfit, it would give away some of the movie’s best surprises. So instead, we’ll just set the stage by saying that Leonard has been in business with the mob out of necessity. He tailors their clothes and lets them use his establishment to stash money and other sensitive things. The decision to allow that comes back to haunt him here.
Everyone who comes through Leonard’s door on this fateful night has an agenda and something they want. Sometimes, Leonard can even provide what they need. The real questions are simple: What does Leonard want? And what does he gain from allowing these events to play out? The answers come pretty quickly, since this film is only 106 minutes long. But for the duration of its runtime, The Outfit is a worthy thriller that deserves to be rediscovered.
The Outfit is streaming on Netflix.
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