The Outfit plays out like a stage play – taking place all in one location, having a heavy focus on the dialogue exchanged between characters and everything is brought down to Earth. Here we have a gangster film filled with doubt, paranoia and violence (both on and off screen). Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies) absolutely soars above the material and makes the dire circumstances he is placed into all the more endearing while maintaining a certain level of intensity. Without Rylance’s cutter being an innocent bystander forced into the middle of a mob related murder within his tailor shop – The Outfit would be a lesser film. 

 

It’s a simple plot and that’s what elevates the entire experience, we have a focus on these few particular characters in a single location trying to literally live through the night and start anew. Dylan O’Brien (The Maze Runner), Zoey Deutch (Zombieland: Double Tap), Johnny Flynn (Lovesick) make three of the eight total characters in the feature and they all do a respectable job with what they are given, however none come near the performance of Rylance. In fact Deutch may be the weakest element of the film and that’s not saying much – her performance is grounded and her arc is interesting enough but her voice feels particularly out of place in this set time period.

 

Even so, The Outfit is a wonderful directorial debut by Graham Moore – with a polished albeit odd conclusion to a tense character piece that will have you thinking this was an adaptation of a stage play that never was.