A One Mann’s Movies review of “Plainclothes” (2025, 4*, 15).
“Plainclothes” is almost the sister film to “Pillion” (which I know is another LFF film that you probably won’t have seen yet). It makes for a sexually-watered-down, less raunchy companion piece. (If you watch this one first your are going to say “Sexually-watered-down? Really Dr Bob? And I will reply, “Yes, really… you wait and see what goes on in Pillion“!)
We are taken back to the late 1990’s and it’s another reminder as to the rough ride (no pun intended) that gay and bi-sexual people had in that decade. (Not that indecent exposure and sexual acts in a public place, where children might walk in at any moment, should ever be a lawful or acceptable thing.) Given entrapment activities shown in the film feel perverse and wrong. But the way that the anti-LGBTQ+ pendulum is swinging in the US, it’s a sad fact that such persecutions might soon return.
One Mann’s Movies Rating:
Plot:
It’s 1997, Syracuse, New York. Lucas (Tom Blyth) is a plainclothes cop on an entrapment mission at a city mall. He is there to make eye-contact with gay men, lead them into the bathrooms and then get them to indecently expose themselves to him and/or request sexual favours, before he leaves the room and a fellow cop arrests them. But Lucas is struggling with his sexuality and when the older and attractive Andrew (Russell Tovey) snaps at his bait he feels a magnetic attraction to the man, to the extent that he lets him go free.
Certification:
UK: 15; US: R. (From the BBFC web site: “Strong sex.” Again, the BBFC are not kidding and the film hovers just on the 15 side of an 18 in terms of some pretty graphic man-on-man sex.)
Talent:
Starring: Tom Blyth, Russell Tovey, Christian Cooke, Darius Fraser, Maria Dizzia, Gabe Fazio, Marlene Mancini, Luke Burke, Joseph Emmi Sr., Christine Albright, Alessandra Ford Balazs.
Directed by: Carmen Emmi.
Written by: Carmen Emmi.
Running Time: 1h 35m.
Summary:
Positives:
- It’s a stunning directorial debut for writer/director Carmen Emmi with some genuinely bold and innovative ideas and cut-aways.
- The editing is superb.
- Tom Blyth gives a career best performance and Russell Tovey is equally compelling.
Negatives:
- Where was the warning?
- Once again, this is not one to watch with grandma!
Full Review of “Plainclothes”:
Brilliant direction. Brilliant Editing.
This is the feature directorial debut for the writer/director Carmen Emmi and it firmly places him on my “one to watch” list. The choice of shots and, in particular, the choice of cut-aways playing out Lucas’s paranoid (or perhaps not paranoid) thoughts is simply superb. There are some scenes in here which are toe-curlingly tense/cringey. A follow-up stake-out in the mall, where Lucas sees Andrew approaching a colleague, is excruciating. Another, involving an encounter with Andrew at his place of work, is even more devastating and brilliantly executed.
In getting to this released cut of the film, the editing by relative newcomer Erik Vogt-Nilsen is splendidly slick. If only the Academy had more scope to look and consider ‘smaller’ films like this, I would suggest that Vogt-Nilsen is worthy of consideration for the Editing Academy Award.
Blyth and Tovey.
Holding the story together is Birmingham (UK)-born Tom Blyth playing Lucas. Blyth is probably best known for playing a young Coriolanus Snow in the latest of the Hunger Games movies, “The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes“. Here he is stunningly good as the closeted gay (or more probably bi) man who is in constant fear of being outed to his traditional family. That’s thanks to his loud-mouthed and bigoted Uncle Paul (Gabe Fazio) having a new girlfriend, Jessie (Alessandra Ford Balazs), who may or may not have some inside information. A dinner scene where this is first mooted is another that is just brilliantly executed.
It’s certainly a good film for British acting, since the role of Andrew is played by Billericay-born Russell Tovey. (Both Tovey and Blyth deliver faultless US accents.) Tovey is one of those mainstays of British film and TV who quietly excels at everything he is in. Here he almost plays an older, wiser, father-figure to Lucas with calmness and authority (at least until that nerve-rattling finale encounter). For example, he orders Lucas to always use a condom, never forgetting that we are still in the grip of the worldwide AIDS epidemic and effective HIV treatments were only just hitting the market.
Why no warning?
One aspect of the film that didn’t quite make sense to me was why Lucas never gave Andrew any warning about the undercover operation at the mall. He admits to Andrew that he is a cop. But never once (to our knowledge as the viewer) does he say “you’d better not do what you did before in that mall mate”! It would have nullified a later, very tense scene. But it would have seemed to be the common-sense thing for him to have done.
Not for watching with granny!
The other thing that some viewers may object to is the very explicit man-on-man sex depicted. As for “Pillion“, this is not one to suggest to watch on the box over Christmas with parents and grandparents in the room (unless, that is, you have a very open family attitude to sexual stuff!).
Summary Thoughts:
I originally had this as a 3.5*s, but in writing up this review and thinking back on the film, I think it deserves more credit than that. It’s quite a little gem of a movie and, as I said in my intro, I can’t wait to see what Carmen Emmi comes out with next.
Where to watch?
Trailer:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsjULVBjlMk.
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