The Outfit 

Released in theaters (US) March 18, 2022

Written and directed by Graham Moore

Starring Mark Rylance, Zoey Deutch, and Johnny Flynn

Available on various streaming services, including Amazon Prime

The Outfit is a good, solid, crime drama. Well worth the 106 minutes of your time it will take to watch it. I call it a crime drama, but that’s not exactly right. It involves crime and criminals. And there is murder. Two murders. But it doesn’t feel like Goodfellas or Reservoir Dogs or Serpico. In fact, it feels more like a stage play than a film. It takes place almost entirely in one location. It is heavy on dialogue. And the tension of the plot relies strongly on the performances.

And that what makes The Outfit worth recommending. The performances are both good and very good. Top honors go to Mark Rylance as an English tailor with a shop in a Chicago neighborhood run by Irish mobsters. The action is a steady crescendo from mundane to tense to violent, intermixed with an evolving psychological story that ties everything together in the end.

Critical Reception 

* “Rylance can hang another immaculate screen performance in the wardrobe.” (Danny Leigh, Financial Times)

* “The pleasures of writer-director Graham Moore’s intimate little crime thriller The Outfit sneak up on you with the same glissando shiver that you feel when you slip on a silk-lined coat.” (Stephanie Zacharek, TIME Magazine)

* “Movies rarely come as chic as The Outfit, a thrifty, continually unpredictable whodunit, fashioned with the same meticulousness found in the bones of a deceptively simple suit.” (Tomris Laffly, RogerEbert.com)

* “A literate and thrilling gangster picture that brings a fresh touch to a well-worn genre.” (Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood)

You can watch the trailer here.