Graham Moore
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Nearly every detail in Moore’s mise-en-scène suggests a theatrical production—even his nods to Alfred Hitchcock’s stagey Rope (1948), another film shot in a single location and, like The Outfit, featuring a dead body hidden in a large wooden chest for much of the runtime.
Hitchcock’s Rope and Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs are the inspirations for this riveting single-location crime thriller from Graham Moore, the writer of The Imitation Game.
Full of twisty turns and clockwork plotting, "The Outfit" calls to mind better suspense films before it — the one-room tension of Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope," the shadowy subterfuge of the fellow Rylance starrer "Bridge of Spies" — though it doesn't quite meet their level.
We talked a lot about this as being kind of tradition of single location cinema from “12 Angry Men” through Hitchcock’s “Rope” and “Lifeboat.”
“The Outfit” has some similarities to films such as “Deathtrap” and “Sleuth” and Kubrick’s “The Killing,” but it also reminded me of “Reservoir Dogs” in that there’s been an offscreen shooting, a man is bleeding out and can’t be taken to a hospital, every indication says there’s a rat within the ranks—and the hot-tempered son of a crew chief believes when Daddy gets here, he’ll know what to do.
Hitchcock’s Rope and Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs are the inspirations for this riveting single-location crime thriller from Graham Moore, the writer of The Imitation Game.
Usually, single-setting films (like “Reservoir Dogs,” “Tape,” etc.) feel more claustrophobic than “The Outfit,” using their single location to build intrigue and action.
The pristine front of Burling’s Chicago shop is managed by his assistant Mable (Zoey Deutch), a surrogate daughter of sorts, who he hopes will take over the business, though she has aspirations of her own (a dynamic that just so happens to mirror “The Godfather”).
The Outfit may not be the most compelling mob crime story this side of The Godfather, nor is it as entertaining as Guy Ritchie’s best films, from which it borrows a fair amount, but as Moore’s directorial debut, it is a pretty good movie nevertheless — one buoyed in large part by the deep bench of technical prowess that the director surrounded himself with, along with a leading man who delivers yet another knockout performance.
This all changed with the arrival of “The Godfather” (1972) and its first sequel (1974).
“The Outfit” has some similarities to films such as “Deathtrap” and “Sleuth” and Kubrick’s “The Killing,” but it also reminded me of “Reservoir Dogs” in that there’s been an offscreen shooting, a man is bleeding out and can’t be taken to a hospital, every indication says there’s a rat within the ranks—and the hot-tempered son of a crew chief believes when Daddy gets here, he’ll know what to do.
If you’re picturing shades of Kubrick’s “The Killing,” but with better clothes, fewer bullets and a self-effacing English fellow quietly trying to defuse the situation, you wouldn’t be far off.
The ingenious dialogue dominates, providing something akin to the early work of David Mamet (see 1987’s “House of Games” and “Glengarry Glen Ross”).
The ingenious dialogue dominates, providing something akin to the early work of David Mamet (see 1987’s “House of Games” and “Glengarry Glen Ross”).
The Outfit yearns to become the next clever crime movie in the vein of The Usual Suspects (1995), complete with a finale that doesn’t so much blow one’s mind as arrive at the inevitable conclusion.
While there were some notable exceptions, the first 40 years of Hollywood movies about organized crime rarely strayed from the blueprint established by Warner Bros. studios beginning in the 1930s with the classics “Little Caesar” and “The Public Enemy.”
Leonard’s situation bears an even stronger resemblance to another Chicago gangster tale, David Mamet’s Things Change , with Don Ameche as a humble shoeshine man promoted to godfather status by comic accident.
While there were some notable exceptions, the first 40 years of Hollywood movies about organized crime rarely strayed from the blueprint established by Warner Bros. studios beginning in the 1930s with the classics “Little Caesar” and “The Public Enemy.”
We talked a lot about this as being kind of tradition of single location cinema from “12 Angry Men” through Hitchcock’s “Rope” and “Lifeboat.”
Aside from the external shot of the storefront, “The Outfit” is confined entirely to Leonard’s establishment, and, as with “Sleuth” (1972), it’s hard to suppress the feeling that we could, and possibly should, be viewing these events onstage.
Leonard’s shop thus serves a role not unlike the bar in Michaël R. Roskam’s 2014 The Drop , though whether or not Leonard is as complicit a participant in underworld doings as James Gandolfini’s Marv was is more or less the question driving the tension throughout The Outfit .
Strangely, despite the initial introduction of distasteful ruffians and seemingly helpless innocents, humor crops up at odd moments, not just in brief exchanges but also in unexpected acts, as if channeling “Arsenic and Old Lace” – but without the overt slapstick.
With his precise, deferential manner and almost preposterous English-ness, Leonard is like a version of Anthony Hopkins’s butler in “The Remains of the Day” (1993).
Alas, my fandom for Stallone has not blinded me to the fact that Rylance deserved the win, but I still growl at him a little because last I checked, he never played Rambo III .
He could never be the rat, they rationalize; he’s “just a fucking tailor”—a line that echoes how Billy Bob Thornton was “just a barber” in the Coen brothers’ The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001).
The idea of using a tailor as the fulcrum of a tense, suspenseful drama reminds us of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread, as well as Louis Malle’s Lacombe Lucien —same detached mannerisms and fussy attention to detail, grafted onto a complex back story.
Marie Antoinette (2006): 2022 Oscar nominee Kirsten Dunst stars in this exuberantly colorful interpretation of the life of the infamous Queen of France.
In the end, what we learn about Leonard is superficial, better explored in thematic terms by David Cronenberg’s films A History of Violence (2005) and Eastern Promises (2007)—films about men whose exterior disguises their deep, dark secrets.