After a long hiatus the Definite Article Movie Blog returns! The ‘W Movie Blog’ has also had a recent entry and the long awaited Michael Shannon Blog, ‘Michael Shannon and On and On’ is coming soon. It is truly a golden age of unread blogingness!
I picked this film up on Netflix, mainly because it featured Johnny Flynn whom I recently enjoyed in a cinema screening of the play ‘The Motive and the Cue’. He played Richard Burton in that and gave good Welshness. In this one he plays gangster against Mark Rylance’s tailor, sorry cutter.
The film feels like a play itself, with only a couple of sets and the action all taking place over a few days, and in mainly during one night in 1950’s Chicago. Rylance is excellent as Leonard an English tailor who has set up shop in The Windy City, citing the advent of blue jeans in London as his reason for his move. We later learn that there was more than denim behind his emigration, but from the start he’s a simple and quietly spoken man going about his work.
The film opens with a voice over as we witness Rylance making a suit. We learn of the various fabrics involved and the skilled and complex process behind the making of a bespoke garment. He corrects people when he is described as a tailor, whom mainly do alterations – he’s a cutter who cuts out the many shapes of fabric needed for a suit, before stitching them together.
As he goes about his business various shady men appear and drop off envelopes in a locked box at the back of the shop. It’s not clear what’s going on initially, but Rylance just minds his own business. Some of the envelopes bear a distinctive mark which we learn is that of ‘the outfit’. This is a shady organisation, seemingly started by Al Capone, and the local low level gangsters think that they may soon merit an invite to the top table.
We learn that Rylance’s first customer was a mob boss and he has since dressed all manner of underworld figures. There is however an issue as there is a rat in the organisation and ‘the outfit’ has sent over a copy of audio tape that fingers the suspect.
The tape sets in motion a night of violence and double crosses as gangster Flynn and the boss’s son try to work out who the rat is. Gun play and double crosses ensue, and soon rival mob bosses are in the back shop - and they’re not after a new pair of trousers.
Who is the rat? And what other secrets does the mild mannered cutter have in store for us?
This was a superior offering that passed me by on it’s cinema release. The whole production is played out like a theatre offering and I don’t think much was lost with a Netflix viewing at home. Rylance does his usual excellent work and he was ably assisted by a fine supporting cast.
The film kept me guessing and, despite it’s single set staging, it never seemed limited or unambitious. The dialogue crackled along and I like how Rylance’s true character slowly emerged as the film wore on. The twists were well realised and fully earned and I liked the cut of this one’s cloth overall.
THE Tag Line : A Cut Above 74%
