Tropic Sprockets / The Outfit

By Ian Brockway

Director Graham Moore has a fine debut with “The Outfit.” The film is slick and exciting with satisfying echoes, despite some predictability. All credit goes to Mark Rylance in the lead role, who gives pathos to what might have been an all too pulpy story.

Leonard (Rylance) is a Kafkaesque tailor who works in a clothing store in 1940s Chicago. Seemingly either unaware or nonchalant, he is patronized by various members of the mafia. A handsome man, Richie (Dylan O’Brien) likes Leonard, as Richie’s father knew him well. Richie is a regular customer. He is dating Leonard’s assistant (Zoey Deutch). 

A day later a sadistic Francis (Johnny Flynn) comes in with badly injured Ritchie and demands that Leonard sew him up. Leonard does and the results aren’t pretty. Francis tells Leonard that there is a rat in the organization. Richie is in charge of a tape that nearly everyone in Chicago is pursuing. Francis is psychotic very much like Richard Widmark in “The Kiss of Death” (1947). He kills Richie. 

A standout is Roy (Simon Russell Beale) as a boss. Though he chews the scenery here along with the heavy accompanying him, he is a joy to watch, reminiscent of the “Godfather” type films.

There are many twists here and some of it feels on cue or automatic pilot. Still the apprehension is in full force when the heavy (Alan Mehdizadeh) sits on a troubling wooden chest.

Rylance is perfect as the existential “cutter” who just does what he is told with no one the wiser. In time, his character delivers giving everyone the story about the immigrant struggle with a Zen calmness. Leonard knows exactly what to say at all the key moments, his face aghast at life’s horror and what he has endured. 

This is a very entertaining Saturday matinee film and you will thrill when the granite-faced men appear even though you might well know in advance.

Despite a kind of O. Henry end with several twists, Mark Rylance gives this genre story real heart and some mystery. His shocked face and slow smiles speak volumes and he gives this angry mug and machine gun story vitality and its well needed gallows humor.

Write Ian at [email protected]

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