Calling a film “stagey” is usually a bit of a high-minded insult, suggesting an artificial theatrical mood and a sense everyone might take a bow at the end. The Outfit is undeniably stagey, but it seems a deliberate, and effective, choice by first-time director Graham Moore (winner of a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for The Imitation Game). His fiendish whodunnit gathers a handful of characters in a single setting and unfurls its secrets in intimate, simply presented fashion. There are certainly bits where you may want to stand and applaud.
Set in Chicago in 1956, The Outfit takes place in a gentlemen’s outfitters run by Leonard Burling (Mark Rylance), an unfailingly polite Englishman. He’s assisted by receptionist Mable (Zoey Deutch), who longs for better things. Most of Leonard’s customers are gangsters who use his back room as a place for trading messages via a humble letter box. Leonard keeps his eyes on his work. That is, until Richie (Dylan O’Brien), the son of the local Mob boss (Simon Russell Beale), comes clattering in with a very bloody bullet-wound and a story about a treacherous mole. Richie and his surly deputy, Francis (Johnny Flynn), keep Leonard hostage while they try to figure out the mole’s identity. Soon there’s a dead body and a growing number of suspects.
Moore uses one set and broad genre archetypes — icy Mob boss, cocky son, jealous deputy, spunky receptionist — but this simplicity feels necessary because there’s nothing simple about his plotting. There’s a twist almost every other minute as Moore points the finger in every direction and puts a gun to just about everyone’s head. It moves at a rapid pace, yet anchored by an inscrutably quiet performance by Rylance, who matches Moore for attention to detail, it ekes out its secrets carefully. Every line and cut is chosen with absolute precision. If you think you know what’s coming, right up until the final seconds, you’re probably wrong.