The Outfit
starring Mark Rylance, Zoey Deutch, Johnny Flynn, Dylan O’Brien, Nikki Amuka-Bird and Simon Russell Beale
written by Graham Moore and Jonathan McClain
directed by Graham Moore
Rating: ♦♦♦♦◊
A crime drama with an ensemble cast. The plot centers around an English tailor, or, as he prefers to be called, a “cutter,” Leonard Burling (Mark Rylance) in Chicago whose primary customers are a family of vicious gangsters. Of course, I immediately thought of the 2001 John Boorman film, The Tailor of Panama (starring Geoffrey Rush, Pierce Brosnan and Jamie Lee Curtis), although the two films are completely dissimilar. They only share a lead character who is a tailor. That’s all.
Set in post-WWII Chicago, Leonard Burling, an expatriate English tailor, sets up shop in a neighborhood controlled by mobsters. Rival gangsters are vying for control of the city in the aftermath of Al Capone. As a tailor to the mob, Burling is privy to a lot of information. But he’s a mild-mannered individual, easily ignored, overlooked and underestimated. Criminals who frequent his shop take little notice of him and say things in his hearing that they perhaps ought not to. Plus, they use his shop to stash dirty money.
The local Irish mob don’s son, Richie Boyle, is dating Burling’s secretary. One thing comes to another, and Boyle is killed in Burling’s shop by an ambitious rival. At issue is control of an incriminating FBI tape recording of criminal goings on in his shop, which is power to the one who controls it. But everyone underestimates Burling while he is secretly playing his own game of double-cross. Burling is NOT who everyone thinks he is, which leads to some really interesting plot twists.
Of course, there’s a double meaning of “The Outfit” being played here. On the one hand is the mobster underworld, The Outfit, and on the other hand is the bespoke suits made by Mr. Burling for his clients.
My favorite line from the film,
“You cannot make something good until you understand who you’re making it for.”