Review of "The Outfit," a gangster drama about the Chicago mob and a London tailor
The directorial debut of the "Imitation Game" screenwriter, reminiscent of a Soviet TV play.
Chicago, 1956. Gangs have real power on the streets of the city. Leonard (Mark Rylance), a tailor who has moved from London, sews the best suits and does not shy away from working for gangsters - thankfully, they pay handsomely. His main clients are Roy Boyle's (Simon Russell Beale) gang. One evening Leonard is visited in the atelier by the gang leader's son Richie Boyle (Dylan O'Brien) and his comrade Francis (Johnny Flynn). They get hold of the tape that exposes the whole criminal group. As it turned out, there was a "rat" in the Boyles' camp who was leaking valuable information to the feds. All that remained was to determine who it was. In a paranoid frenzy, suspicion falls on everyone: Richie, Francis, the tailor and the administrator of the atelier Mabel (Zoey Deutch). There is bound to be blood on the expensive and well-cut suits.
"The Outfit" is the directorial debut of writer and screenwriter Graham Moore. The filmmaker won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for "The Imitation Game. The Suit premiered out of competition at this year's Berlinale, which makes sense: any festival needs stars on the red carpet.
Graham Moore not only has an impressive cast, but also an impressive crew. Alexander Desplat, the composer of "The Shape of Water", "The Grand Budapest Hotel", "The Officer and the Spy" and many other titled films, wrote the music for the film. The film was shot by Mike Leigh's regular cameraman, Dick Pope. All introductions indicate that "The Outfit" could have turned out a better cut.
The action of the film is limited to one atelier and a few important characters. Both texturally and dramaturgically, the picture resembles a TV play or a theatrical production. There is always one character, the tailor Leonard, on stage. He is joined in turn by other important actors: an assistant, whom he treats as his daughter, members of the Boyle gang and their adversaries from the French gang. They are all dressed in style and according to the fashion of the middle of the last century: the men - in luxurious hats and suits (and could it be otherwise, since that is the name of the movie?), the women - in dresses that can be called vintage chic today. Each character pushes a programmatic monologue or engages in a nuanced dialogue with the tailor, a treasure trove of British wisdom, at an appointed time. Only all the lines are functional; there's no gloss in them. Except for the occasional quotation of Oscar Wilde.
You might picture Quentin Tarantino's "Mad Dogs" without the bloodbaths and the flashbacks, or his "The Hideous Eight" when the characters make it safely to the snow-covered cabin, or a less witty version of Ben Wheatley's "Shootout" where no one shoots at anyone: it's not bullets, but words. And it's not Aaron Sorkin's machine-gun bursts of dialogue at all, no, it's hard to see the Oscar-winning screenwriter behind the text of The Suit. That said, the men are dressed like Matthew McConaughey or Charlie Hunnam from Guy Ritchie's "Gentlemen," adjusted for another era, and hold themselves confidently in the frame, knowing that the suits fit perfectly. This description will be enough to get a sense of what Graham Moore's debut is all about.
The original title of the film is Outfit. And this English word has two meanings: not only "costume" but also "organization. It was the name of a Chicago syndicate of organized crime. Its heyday was in the 1920s, and is associated with the names of John Torrio and Al Capone. By mid-century, it's still a power structure, but it's already on the wane, so you can make fun of it. Today, all these serious men on the screen look a little comical: they want to shine like Hollywood stars, but they earn their living by trivial robbery, protection and murder. No romance.
The highlight of "The Suit" is Mark Rylance. His Leonard is a classical British man: prim, long-winded, well-behaved and not without a sense of humor. From the very first minutes, it is clear that behind the barely concealed smirk lurks an obscure past. The tailor assures us that he moved to Chicago from London after the war because the British capital was flooded with jeans and suits went out of style. But that's not all. Leonard seems to be a small man, a witness to big events, but he's not so simple--a seasoned player always has a couple of aces up his sleeve. Rylance leads the game with undisguised gusto. In a space-constrained, almost theatrical entourage, the artist feels like a fish in water. You don't have to watch the rest of the characters - only the tailor is truly interesting.
Graham Moore's debut film doesn't impress with its soundtrack or camerawork; it's all average. "The Suit" is a picture of covid time: a minimum of locations and actors. Only the author lacks ingenuity, or maybe even courage. The script is insufficiently witty, crazy, bloody and dynamic. By its conception it is an experimental movie: a film about gangsters, but without the shootings; one room, and all the key events are talked through by the participants and put outside the frame. But it's all too classy and noble, with no sudden ups and downs. There is snoring coming from the audience.
This article was sponsored by Chun-Wei Liu
Comentários