Plainclothes, 2025.
Written and Directed by Carmen Emmi.
Starring Tom Blyth, Russell Tovey, Amy Forsyth, Maria Dizzia, Christian Cooke, Gabe Fazio, John Bedford Lloyd, Alessandra Ford Balazs, and Sam Asa Brownstein.
SYNOPSIS:
A promising undercover agent assigned to lure and arrest gay men defies professional orders when he falls in love with a target.
Writer/director Carmen Emmi’s closeted-sexuality thriller Plainclothes has one hell of a hook: an agent specializing in going undercover and attracting the eye of potentially gay men, following them into a public bathroom to catch them in the act, taking that suggestiveness further or making a handsy move, only to promptly exit and bring in the authorities to make an arrest (the film takes place in 1997), is actually a gay man and has now dropped his guard on one of his targets, nervously eager to meet up and see what happens.
The idea of balancing that with Lucas (Tom Blyth, recently having impressed in blockbuster fare such as the latest The Hunger Games installment) facing a moral crisis while seeing the older, anxious but wiser Andrew (a delicate turn from Russell Tovey) and trying to keep up the arrests should, in theory, pave the way for a satisfying amount of character-driven tension. However, the screenplay takes a simplified route giving Lucas a temporary break from that line of work since, by now, most gay men have spread his picture around and are aware of who to avoid. Of course, Andrew is none the wiser, which starts believable enough until becoming far-fetched once it’s revealed how much he has to lose from sneaking around and being sexually active with men without caution.
Instead, Plainclothes is about the family drama, which sees Lucas grieving his father’s death while gradually letting loved ones know that he and his girlfriend Emily (Amy Forsyth) have broken up. Meanwhile, his deadbeat uncle Paulie (Gabe Fazio) has had a falling out with his wife and children, now resorting to pushing over his sister and leeching at her house. While navigating all of this, including his new homoerotic friendship, vivid childhood memories of him and his father are constantly flooding the mind, depicted here using home-movie style footage. Lucas has admitted to his ex-girlfriend that he might be gay, but it’s also evident that he bears a lot of shame and has paranoid thoughts, wondering what his family, especially his father, would think about his sexuality.
The first significant issue is that Carmen Emmi has no restraint in deploying this home-movie memory footage, which is so frequently spliced that it becomes an aggressive stylistic touch that loses all sense of meaning and effect. The longer Plainclothes goes on, it begins to feel like a visual approach to compensate for the lack of suspense. With that said, there is no denying that the scenes between Tom Blyth and Russell Tovey are tender, sensitive, and erotic. Andrew is by no means open about his homosexuality, but he does gently guide Lucas through how to meet guys and have flings while being staunchly opposed to taking the relationship beyond sex. It’s a much more engaging film whenever it’s focused on them and momentarily ditching the uninteresting family conflicts.
By the time Plainclothes finally transitions into something resembling a thriller, it feels like that is being done out of obligation rather than convincing character beats. The ending sequence is hilariously over-the-top while trying to reach a cathartic, emotional release and truth. The plain part of the title is accurate.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, and Online Film Critics Society. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews and follow my BlueSky or Letterboxd
