The Outfit

Excellent! This movie is a story within a story about Irish mobsters in Chicago in 1956, and it feels like a play because nearly all of the action happens in a single room.

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This is a slow burning, psychological crime thriller that gains in intensity as it progresses. The many times the lead character says the truth out loud, I held my breath, but the mobsters disregard him.

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When the lead character would lie, or a drop of blood would hit the ground, my heart rate would shoot up. For such a simple story, it packs in a lot of tension!

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In the end, I wasn’t sure if the FBI were involved or not (or if that was yet another lie) or if the lady would betray him or not.

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The writing is very good, the characters are never sure what is the truth and what is a lie, and casting of Mark Rylance was excellent. He was convincing as a cutter (not a tailor) because he trained with actual cutters on Savile Row. He was able to infuse the simple act of hand sewing a seam with a tremendous amount of tension.

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What I understood at the end was that this guy is smarter than the mob. He’d created a big enough lie (with a beautiful, accompanying logo) that the mobsters were scared of it.

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It goes without saying that the clothes in this film are gorgeous. The coats and suits are sublime. Even the palette of this film is nice.

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