Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Graham Moore
Starring: Mark Rylance, Zoey Deutch, Johnny Flynn, Dylan
O'Brien, Simon Russell-Beale, Nikki Amuka-Bird
If I were feeling particularly cruel I might suggest 'Reservoir Slogs'
as an alternate title for screenwriter turned director
Graham Moore's feature debut The Outfit. With a plot involving a traitor in its characters' midst, a key
figure slowly bleeding from a gunshot wound and a single location
setting, it's impossible not to compare it unfavourably to Tarantino's
debut. While Tarantino took a stagey setup and opened it up
cinematically, you get the feeling that Moore is simply filming a
non-existent play. Tarantino's characters told us one thing while the
filmmaker showed us another, but here the entire story is told by its
characters. As a storyteller, Moore appears to concede his job to his
own creations, and the result is a plot that has so many arbitrary
twists and turns that they quickly begin to lose weight. By the end, if
you haven't already predicted who the traitor is, you'll probably have
stopped caring.
The single location here is a tailor's shop in a mob-controlled
neighbourhood of 1956 Chicago. Sorry, Leonard (Mark Rylance)
prefers to be known as a "cutter" rather than a tailor. Once the proud
owner of a shop on London's Savile Row, Leonard has ended up in Chicago,
telling anyone who asks that he left London due to the rise in
popularity of blue jeans. It's an early indication that Leonard may not
be all he seems, as heading to the US to escape jeans is akin to going
to Holland to avoid tulips.
Mild-mannered, soft-spoken Leonard allows local mobsters to deposit
letters in a box in the back of his shop. He keeps his head down and
doesn't ask questions. One fateful night, he's no longer able to look
the other way and is pulled into the violent world of the mob.
Just as he's shutting up shop, local mobsters Richie (Dylan O'Brien, unconvincing as a heavy) and Francis (Johnny Flynn, very
convincing as a slimy shitheel) come bounding through his door. Richie
has been shot and Francis figures that since Leonard spends his day
sewing, he can stitch up his wound. It's revealed that a rat has been
bugging the mob's conversations and sending the tapes on to the FBI, and
as several other characters find their way to Leonard's shop, a battle
of wits is played out as the tai…sorry, cutter attempts to survive the
night.
As a self-confessed "show, don’t tell" cultist, I struggled with the
talky, exposition-or-is-it manner of storytelling deployed here. The
story is told largely through words rather than images, and most of
those words come from Leonard, a narrator who can't be trusted. It seems
Leonard is making things up as he goes along, and this rubs off on the
film itself. There's no sense of a filmmaker in control here. This is
the antithesis of auteurist cinema.
Moore fluffs several potentially suspenseful moments, most glaringly
one involving an incriminating piece of clothing, a mobster's coat.
Rather than hard-wiring the coat into our brains so that we realise it's
on display and may betray Leonard, Moore draws our attention to it as
the same time Leonard is informed of its conspicuous presence. He opts
for a cheap shock rather than sustained suspense, breaking Hitchcock's
golden rule. Elsewhere Moore sets himself up for an unfavourable
comparison to Hitchcock with a plot beat borrowed from Rope, arguably the best screen version of this sort of setup.
While Moore's film suffers from stilted storytelling, it's saved by
some thrilling performances. Rylance has become something of an Anthony
Hopkins figure, a very gifted performer who too often gives in to
hamminess. Every once in a while he reminds us how great he can be.
The Outfit offers the sort of role that suits Rylance
best, forcing him to discard any tics as he essays an insular
personality. For such a dialogue heavy movie, it's telling that the most
effective moments in the movie are those that let us watch Rylance's
face as his character assesses the scenario and plans his next move.
Flynn gets to ham it up as a clichéd Chicago hoodlum, but he understands
exactly the archetype he's playing and is a lot of fun to watch. I
didn't buy Simon Russell-Beale and Nikki Amuka-Bird as
Irish and Creole mob bosses, but they're engaging nonetheless.
Moore owes his cast a round of drinks, as otherwise, unlike the bespoke
suits fashioned by Leonard, The Outift's storytelling simply isn't sharp enough.
