The Outfit (2022)

September 26, 2022 7:55 PM

Aging master tailor Leonard (Mark Rylance) must outwit a dangerous group of mobsters in order to survive a fateful night.

Also starring Zoey Deutch, Johnny Flynn, and Dylan O'Brien.

Directed by Graham Moore (The Imitation Game). Written by Moore and Johnathan McClain.

85% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

Currently streaming in the US on Amazon Prime. Also available for digital rental on multiple outlets. JustWatch listing.

posted by DirtyOldTown (15 comments total)

We clicked into this by mistake and were so entranced by the opening three minutes that we're planning on making a night of watching it tomorrow. Positively hypnotic and masterful opening.... it was immediately unambiguous that this writer-director knows what they're doing kind of stuff. The reviews seem to indicate that is the case. Can't wait to see the whole thing. I hope this one ends as well as it starts.

Seriously. Check out this opening.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:56 PM on September 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

Oh wow, and it has UK musician Johnny Flynn in it. He did the theme song for The Detectorists.

Here's one of his songs.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:05 PM on September 26, 2022

I don’t know if it quite sticks the landing, but we liked it. I was actually a bit surprised that it wasn’t an adaptation of a play. The casting is tight, and all of the scenes except a handful of brief, dialogue-less flashbacks take place in the 3 rooms of the shop.
posted by jedicus at 9:09 PM on September 26, 2022 [4 favorites]

The death of Hilary Mantel made me remember the adaptation of Wolf Hall, which made me remember how much I enjoy Mark Rylance. This sounds very much like something i'd enjoy. thanks for posting.
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:51 AM on September 27, 2022 [3 favorites]

I really liked this one and also wondered if it had been based on a play, just due to how well choreographed the story is to the single location. Everyone in it is so great, especially Mark Rylance (of course!) Definitely recommend.
posted by kittensyay at 10:35 AM on September 27, 2022

Just finished enjoying this. Thanks!
posted by kingless at 11:56 AM on September 27, 2022

I thought it was very, very good at the beginning, then became more pedestrian as it went along. Rylance and Deutsch are magic together, but the rest of the film doesn't rise to the level of their performances.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 2:47 PM on September 27, 2022

I loved it but I do think where it ends up is fairly obvious if you've seen a movie before. But Rylance and Deutsch are great and it's a good slow burn. I also thought it was a stage play and I was surprised it wasn't! It does so much with the limited spaces it takes place in. There are some gnarly bits but it's mostly just people talking to each other and trying to outwit each other that way.

It's definitely good but it's maybe not as smart as it believes itself to be. But I still loved it. It's some good, twisty fun. I was entertained in a very classic movie sense. I think a lot of people will like this.
posted by edencosmic at 6:52 PM on September 27, 2022 [2 favorites]

It wasn't deep, but it ran like a Swiss watch. I enjoyed it.

Probably, it was a limited locations thing because it was made to be produced during COVID.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:12 PM on September 27, 2022

Chekhov’s shears. Great fun. Hummed right along.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 9:58 PM on September 27, 2022 [1 favorite]

> jedicus: "I was actually a bit surprised that it wasn’t an adaptation of a play"

This was my exact feeling as well. Everything about how it was staged reminded me of a stage play. I can picture in my mind a stage divided into thirds to represent the front, middle, and back rooms of the shop. Even something like how they show a car pulling up to the shop by showing the headlights illuminating the windows is very (stage-)theatrical; in a regular movie, the more conventional thing to do would be something like an exterior shot showing a car pulling up.
posted by mhum at 11:14 AM on September 28, 2022 [2 favorites]

Perhaps it was the body in the chest, but the film reminded me of Hitchcock's Rope.
posted by SPrintF at 8:14 PM on September 28, 2022 [1 favorite]

I thought it was very, very good at the beginning, then became more pedestrian as it went along.

I quite liked a lot of this movie, but I felt like the ending, as well as a few choices throughout, undid the promise of the beginning. The preview, and the lovely monologue at the beginning, raise in us the expectation that we are going to see a mild-mannered and quietly terrified English tailor get the jump on a bunch of hard cases purely because he has been literally and figuratively sizing them up for years. That's the movie I thought I was watching, and with a few changes it could have been this movie.

But the ending told me that I'd been watching a movie where an old gangster comes out of retirement to clean up the neighborhood. And I've seen that movie before, and it's not a bad movie, but it wasn't the movie I thought I was watching, and it retroactively robbed a lot of the earlier scenes of their drama and interest.
posted by gauche at 7:30 AM on October 24, 2022 [2 favorites]

Excellent film, I really enjoyed it. I agree it was one twist too many, cut the last bit and it's a better movie.
posted by InfidelZombie at 6:06 PM on January 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

Good stuff.


Leonard: “I don’t know anything about lying, subterfuge….. "

Francis: “You don’t know how to say one thing when you mean somethin’ else?.. I thought you were English”
posted by lalochezia at 4:58 PM on July 4, 2023