The Outfit

The Outfit

Leonard is an English tailor who used to craft suits on London’s world-famous Savile Row. After a personal tragedy, he’s ended up in Chicago, operating a small tailor shop in a rough part of town where he makes beautiful clothes for the only people around who can afford them: a family of vicious gangsters.

  • Released: 2022-03-18
  • Runtime: 105 minutes
  • Genre: Crime, Drama, Thrillers
  • Stars: Mark Rylance, Zoey Deutch, Dylan O'Brien, Johnny Flynn, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Simon Russell Beale, Alan Mehdizadeh, Johnathan McClain, Scoop Wasserstein, Chiedu Agborh, Michael Addo, Michal Forejtek, Bmcabana Sf, John Gumley-Mason, Stephen Knox, Lauris Karklins, Steve Chatfield, William Keetch, Ryan Hall
  • Director: Graham Moore
 Comments
  • keithsarji - 10 January 2023
    Utterly contrived, filled with stupid contradictions and modern cliches
    What a stupid movie.

    From start to finish, every character (with the possible exception of Mabel) was forced into actions that were inconsistent with their own character, in order to further the "development" of the forced plot, which lays a thin skin of 'clever' on top of a bunch of bad writing and interconnected tropes.

    Let's see... the Cutter. What is he? A mild mannered tailor? A ruthless criminal thug? A superspy able to con and manipulate everyone around him into doing his secret bidding?

    Well, the answer is that he gets to be all of the above, through the magic of bad writing. Nothing about the process feels real, as every time the story wants to fall apart, the writers just force the characters back onto the predetermined rails.

    That's the base dynamic. Any time that something might reasonably have stopped the 'clever' plot from working, the writers just made the characters do something else to fit the contrived plot, no matter how lame or out of character that might be.

    For example, two mobsters (Richey and Francis) who have known each other for most of their lives get manipulated by the Cutter into shooting each other, based on a few words he whispers separately in their ears. Wow, that was easy. It's a good thing they didn't take ten seconds to compare notes or they might have figured things out. One wonders how these guys could conceivably have survived to adulthood, rather than wandering out into traffic or drowning while staring up into the rain.

    And when Francis murders Richey, he doesn't simply kill the Cutter and Mabel right then cause, uh, the movie would be over.

    Suspension of disbelief is one thing, but this movie requires suspension of intelligence.

    Yet I kept watching, hoping that somehow it would all add up in the end, despite the mounting evidence that the stupidity would only continue. So I got to see even more 'clever' features, like the bumbling white mobsters (Keystone Kop level backstabbing cretins) contrasted with La Fontaine, the leader of a rival gang. She's honorable and keeps her word cause, you know, she's black, and in 2022 that means it is required that she be awesome. And she speaks French and has such a great sense of style, cause that's what 1950s mobsters in Chicago were really like, and Wakanda obviously doesn't have any crime so she can't live there.

    In a film where the white mobsters are all vicious and stupid in their criminality, La Fontaine gets to give a speech about her oppression, and honorably pays a box full of money to two people without power or guns. She is literally portrayed as stylish, honest, and virtuous. Yeah, that's exactly how black gangsters work. It's how the Crips and Bloods operate, for sure.

    And when Richey bursts out of the closet at La Fontaine (having specifically stated that he is going to come out shooting) he doesn't fire a shot cause, uh, well, then he would have shot her and we can't have that. Have I mentioned just how dumb this all started to feel?

    But never fear, the three-in-one character of the Cutter shall save the day. He has a last fight scene with (the previously-dead) Francis where he FINALLY uses his cutting shears to kill someone, thus allowing me to fill in the final square on the Bingo board of stupid things that this movie was obviously going to do from the beginning, along with the laughable "reveal" that the Cutter is actually a tatted-up former killer. What!?! No way!

    So the answer to the film's central question turns out to be that...

    Is the Cutter a badass killer? Yes!

    Is he also a mild-mannered tailor? Yes!

    Is he also a loving father figure? Yes!

    Is he a tragic hero, fleeing from his past? Yes!

    And is he also a political genius who can flawlessly manipulate everyone around him? Yes!

    The cutter is everything! Now shut up.

    What a waste of time. Bleah.
  • griffithxjohnson - 2 January 2023
    Biggest surprise of 2022
    A simple premise that becomes anything but that as the plot unravels. Great acting from Rylance with a clever blend of editing & sound design. Many twists that keep me glued to the screen while all taking place in 1 shop.

    . .

    . A simple premise that becomes anything but that as the plot unravels. Great acting from Rylance with a clever blend of editing & sound design. Many twists that keep me glued to the screen while all taking place in 1 shop.

    . .

    . A simple premise that becomes anything but that as the plot unravels. Great acting from Rylance with a clever blend of editing & sound design. Many twists that keep me glued to the screen while all taking place in 1 shop.