The Outfit review – Mark Rylance leads an entertaining mob tailor whodunnit

It’s somewhat shocking to learn that The Outfit is not, in fact, adapted from a play. Set entirely in a tailor’s shop consisting of just three rooms, with a staginess and wordiness to the material, and a knowing artifice to the performances, it's perhaps the biggest surprise in a film that loves to keep throwing twists at the viewer.

It succeeds mostly because the story in and of itself is an entertaining construct to watch unravel. Mark Rylance plays Leonard, another one of his doddering English eccentrics, who runs a tailor’s in 1950s Chicago (though he prefers the term “cutter”). His shop also doubles as a postbox for the local mafia, courtesy of a small black box in the back room where Richie (Dylan O’Brien) and Francis (Johnny Flynn) visit to collect the mail. Smelling a rat, their visits become more aggressive and frequent, drawing in Leonard’s receptionist Mabel (Zoey Deutch) and Richie’s dad, mob boss Roy (Simon Russell Beale).

Part of the charm is in how much The Outfit leans into its inherently throwback nature. The film is all dressed up to look and sound like the sort of 1950s crime film that Hollywood studios were churning out back then, with the single-set location approximating a particularly shoestring affair. The actors do a fine job of mimicking the accents so frequently heard in those crime films, a way of talking that has largely disappeared in the movies (and in real life) except for parody or pastiche. Here it plays more as homage, with Johnny Flynn in particular looking particularly rough-hewn. Only Dylan O’Brien lets the side down with his spoilt, hot-headed daddy’s boy, which leans more into SNL Sopranos skit than convincing gangster.

As the plot twists and winds its way to an inevitably convoluted finish, each step of the way is calmly and clearly directed, with an ease to the pacing of the film aided by the gorgeous, yellowing cinematography from Dick Pope (Mike Leigh’s regular collaborator). This being novelist-turned-screenwriter-turned-director Graham Moore’s first feature (he had previously written the screenplay for the already forgotten Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game in 2014), he has clearly surrounded himself with fine talent to help him on his way.

But despite the clarity of his direction, one senses that he could have done with being a bit less timid stylistically – one of the film’s biggest issues is the somewhat studious focus on just allowing the actors to get through the plot. Even though all the pieces are clearly laid out, there’s not a huge reason to care much about the underlying psychological subtext.

And yet, as The Outfit shimmies into something like an Agatha Christie-style whodunnit, it becomes exponentially more entertaining, showcasing a lot more control over pacing than the recent blundering attempts by Kenneth Branagh to do the same. If this, alongside the Knives Out films, signals a real resurgence of quality locked-room murder-mysteries, we're in for a treat.

The Outfit screened at the Berlinale Film Festival 2022. It is released in UK cinemas on 8 April.