Movie Review: The Outfit

2.5 stars out of 5

I texted my friend Lex Burling right after seeing the trailer for this movie a while back. I needed to tell her that, on the front window of a tailor shop in the film, it prominently says “L. BURLING.” I also said in that text exchange that initially The Outfit looked pretty good but I was soon wondering, “Does this whole movie take place in one room?”

It indeed it does. Well, two and a half rooms, really: the shop’s front room, the tailor’s work room, and glimpses of a back room. If I’m being generous, this helps give the movie the feel of a stage play. Adding to that (trigger warning: rising snark), the stock secondary characters — the innocent secretary who wants to see the world, the ambitious son of a local crime boss, etc. — seem to theatrically deliver their lines rather than speaking naturally. And, less generously, I was also reminded of sitcoms’ “bottle episodes” in which the action is limited to very few sets for budgetary reasons. (Hijinks ensue when the gang accidentally gets trapped in the meat locker!)

Nevertheless, I got into a groove with The Outfit where I knew it wasn’t great but was enjoying it nonetheless. The excellent Mark Rylance, as the tailor whoops I mean cutter like they call them on Saville Row, was redeeming himself for his extremely annoying performance in Don’t Look Up. Zoey Deutch a.k.a. Lea Thompson’s daughter hubba hubba is convincing as a fresh-scrubbed assistant (“You don’t meet nice boys on Skid Row, Mr. Mushnik”) who collects snow globes of all the places she wants to travel. Hey, I collect snow globes too! I was connecting to the movie! I accepted that there wasn’t extensive character development because this is a genre gangster/mystery piece — the kindly old neighborhood craftsman looks the other way as the local hoods drop off their envelopes — hey I remember those from The Sopranos! — in a slot in a box in the shop.

But that peaceful coexistence goes out the window when the baddie No. 1 son gets shot (“I got a marble in my gut”) and ends up on the tailor’s table. Oh also it’s 1950s Chicago and the snow outside looks really fake. Are we inside one of those snow globes?!? #StElsewhere

The problem as I see it is that director/cowriter Graham Moore (who also wrote the good not great The Imitation Game) was saving up a whole lotta plot, with the whodunnits and the oh I didn’t expect thats, and it all comes spilling out at the end, as the movie collapses under the weight of twists and turns.

“Well, that got ridiculous,” I said to the two older women in the theater as the lights came up. No, they liked it; that’s what happens in this kind of movie. Hey, what do I know; to each his own.