The Glasgow Film Festival makes a welcome return to an in-person festival for the first time since the start of the pandemic. Therefore it makes sense that the festival kicks off with The Outfit on the red carpet.
Leonard (Mark Rylance), a master English tailor who’s ended up in Chicago, operates a corner tailor shop with his assistant (Zoey Deutch) where he makes beautiful clothes for the only people around who can afford them: a family of vicious gangsters. One night, two killers (Dylan O’Brien, Johnny Flynn) knock on his door in need of a favour. Leonard soon finds himself thrust onto the board in a deadly game of deception and murder.
Mark Rylance has spent some time carving out a niche as Hollywood’s go-to man for playing eccentric tech giants who might be on the spectrum. Therefore it is nice to see him deliver his best performance since his Oscar-winning turn in Bridge Of Spies. He is still tapping into his trademark stoicism but here it is entirely befitting his character. In his introduction, he explains there are 228 steps in making a suit. Leonard is a man who is always working many steps ahead and is constantly working the angles to produce the desired outcome.
He sparks off the younger actors wonderfully. Individual scenes with the likes of Dylan O’Brien, Zoey Deutch and Johnny Flynn crackle with energy before leading to a Shakespearean showdown with fellow thespian Simon Russell Beale.
Writer-Director Grahame Moore has fashioned a thriller that everything and everyone might not be what they seam…
It is immaculately plotted with not a single line of dialogue, a single look or gesture wasted. A story and plot so densely intricate that it has the characters and audience guessing the whole way. However perhaps only one person knows how it all fits together.
All the action takes place within Leonard’ shop. The single location gives the story a theatrical feel. Rather than a stage to screen adaptation, The Outfit would make for a fantastic film to play adaptation. As the hours tick by, it feels like the walls are closing in. The tension slowly ratcheted up notch by notch. The characters finding their chances for success and survival ever decreasing. Like a cutter, NOT a tailor, bringing in a suit jacket inch by inch.
Like the best suits from Savile Row, The Outfit is a cut above. Put together with the rarest skill and with a surprise or two up its sleeve.
The Outfit is in cinemas from April 8
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Director: Grahame Moore
Stars: Mark Rylance, Zoey Deutch, Dylan O’Brien
Runtime: 105 minutes
Country: USA
