Chris Knipp
10-01-2025, 09:56 PM
http://www.chrisknipp.com/images/%20lcs.jpg
TIM BLYTH AND RUSSELL TOVEY IN PLAINCLOTHES
CARMEN EMMI: PLAINCLOTHES (2025)
TRAILER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsjULVBjlMk)
A closeted gay cop falls in love with one of his sting targets
This film deals with a retro world (identified as being in New York State, in the vicinity of Syracuse) when local police are entrapping gay men who cruise a mall for sex and so they chose to set it in 1997. Since same-sex sexual activity became legal in New York for men over 21 in 1967, that seems far-fetched. I may have lived around San Francisco (seen as Valhalla by the beleaguered would-be couple in Plainclothes) for too long to know. In any case this film seems dangerously close to the dubious outlook of William Friedkin's 1980 Cruising. Are these bad days coming back?
Plainclothes might better have been set in 1980, anyway, or some earlier date. Those who have liked this film admire its use of a complicated (I would say needlessly distracting) mixture of rapid-edit-linked images, Academy ratio, surveillance images plus grainy videotape for the protagonist's memories as far back as childhood or for his troubled thoughts. A separate storyline shows him struggling to cope with the recent death of his father and with a closeted life in which his great concern is to shield his mother from an identity he hasn't even developed yet. He breaks up with his live-in girlfriend, the only person in his life with whom he can confide. This conflicted central character is Lucas (English actor Tom Blyth), a twenty-something cop brought in to freshen the mall sting with younger, cuter bait.
Another flaw of the film beside its retro theme is that we don't see enough of Lucas at work in the mall playing the bait role before he meets the man he connects with. Lucas is instructed to do his cruising sitting at a table in the middle of the mall, just by making eyes at possibly interested men on a balcony. This is how Lucas connects with Andrew (Russell Tovey, another English actor). Eventually they are standing together in the men's room where the arrests take place, with Andrew obviously interested in the tall, young, baby-faced, broad-shouldered Lucas.
For the sting operation several cops work together, with the bait cop not allowed to enter a toilet with his target or speak to him, luring him by gestures into exposing himself in plain view, whereupon the arrest is made. Scenes at police headquarters show the chief regards "homosexuals" as "perverts" likely to go on to other more heinous and evil deeds.
When Andrew is close to Lucas, who tells him his name is Gus, his father's name, Lucas has feelings and so aborts the operation. Andrew gets a note with his phone number to him. They meet several times, first at a grand old movie palace, where they just talk. The cinematic aspect isn't developed except to show the lovely ornate decoration. The second time is in a greenhouse, and how the two men can get very physical in such a bright open setting is a mystery to me, but this is what they do. This is when they exchange some intimate details, but they do not trust each other, or themselves.
As far as the relationship goes, the film depicts it fairly. But it does not go anywhere. Andrew, a married man with children, is shut down. Lucas is not fully out to himself yet.
And this is what we get. There is a quick surprise ending turning on a reveal of Andrew's occupation discovered by Lucas when he does an address check using the man's license plate number, which he does in a kind of desperation when, in his frustration, he becomes madly enamored of Andrew, and Andrew turns out not to want to meet up with any of his gay liaisons normally more than once. Director Emmi's screenplay is like an O. Henry style short story, sacrificing depth in the interest of brevity and surprise. It generates strong emotion, but doesn't develop character or arrive at a satisfying resolution.
Though it's longer and more complicated, Plainclothes brings to mind some of the many queer short films that are made all the time and turn up on gay websites like the French "Gay Cultes." They often go for a happy ending but sometimes not. This one ends with a violent, destructive coming out prompted by a misunderstanding that you may have anticipated. Plainclothes, which reportedly was shot in eighteen days, is as crude as those short films but lacks their sweet wistfulness, without seeming particularly "real," since it strives more for surreal and expressionistic effects.
What holds the film together and led to Magnolia's distributing it, as so often, is the acting, particularly by Blyth as Lucas and Tovey as Andrew, both with flawless American accents, and restrained conviction. Gabe Fazio is vivid as Lucas' "leech" uncle Paul, who is used to precipitate a violent finale. Maria Dizzia is vivid as Marie, Lucas' mother. There are lots of relatives, and secondary police characters to fill out the working scenes, but for all this detail, only the few, unsatisfying moments between Lucas and Andrew have any staying power.
PLAINCLOTHES, 96 mins., premiered at Sundance Jan. 26, 2025, showing at other festivals including Provincetown, Frameline, and Jerusalem. Limited theatrical release Sept. 19, 2025. Release in Northern California Oct. 3, 2025. Metacritic (https://www.metacritic.com/movie/plainclothes/) rating: 66%.
TIM BLYTH AND RUSSELL TOVEY IN PLAINCLOTHES
CARMEN EMMI: PLAINCLOTHES (2025)
TRAILER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsjULVBjlMk)
A closeted gay cop falls in love with one of his sting targets
This film deals with a retro world (identified as being in New York State, in the vicinity of Syracuse) when local police are entrapping gay men who cruise a mall for sex and so they chose to set it in 1997. Since same-sex sexual activity became legal in New York for men over 21 in 1967, that seems far-fetched. I may have lived around San Francisco (seen as Valhalla by the beleaguered would-be couple in Plainclothes) for too long to know. In any case this film seems dangerously close to the dubious outlook of William Friedkin's 1980 Cruising. Are these bad days coming back?
Plainclothes might better have been set in 1980, anyway, or some earlier date. Those who have liked this film admire its use of a complicated (I would say needlessly distracting) mixture of rapid-edit-linked images, Academy ratio, surveillance images plus grainy videotape for the protagonist's memories as far back as childhood or for his troubled thoughts. A separate storyline shows him struggling to cope with the recent death of his father and with a closeted life in which his great concern is to shield his mother from an identity he hasn't even developed yet. He breaks up with his live-in girlfriend, the only person in his life with whom he can confide. This conflicted central character is Lucas (English actor Tom Blyth), a twenty-something cop brought in to freshen the mall sting with younger, cuter bait.
Another flaw of the film beside its retro theme is that we don't see enough of Lucas at work in the mall playing the bait role before he meets the man he connects with. Lucas is instructed to do his cruising sitting at a table in the middle of the mall, just by making eyes at possibly interested men on a balcony. This is how Lucas connects with Andrew (Russell Tovey, another English actor). Eventually they are standing together in the men's room where the arrests take place, with Andrew obviously interested in the tall, young, baby-faced, broad-shouldered Lucas.
For the sting operation several cops work together, with the bait cop not allowed to enter a toilet with his target or speak to him, luring him by gestures into exposing himself in plain view, whereupon the arrest is made. Scenes at police headquarters show the chief regards "homosexuals" as "perverts" likely to go on to other more heinous and evil deeds.
When Andrew is close to Lucas, who tells him his name is Gus, his father's name, Lucas has feelings and so aborts the operation. Andrew gets a note with his phone number to him. They meet several times, first at a grand old movie palace, where they just talk. The cinematic aspect isn't developed except to show the lovely ornate decoration. The second time is in a greenhouse, and how the two men can get very physical in such a bright open setting is a mystery to me, but this is what they do. This is when they exchange some intimate details, but they do not trust each other, or themselves.
As far as the relationship goes, the film depicts it fairly. But it does not go anywhere. Andrew, a married man with children, is shut down. Lucas is not fully out to himself yet.
And this is what we get. There is a quick surprise ending turning on a reveal of Andrew's occupation discovered by Lucas when he does an address check using the man's license plate number, which he does in a kind of desperation when, in his frustration, he becomes madly enamored of Andrew, and Andrew turns out not to want to meet up with any of his gay liaisons normally more than once. Director Emmi's screenplay is like an O. Henry style short story, sacrificing depth in the interest of brevity and surprise. It generates strong emotion, but doesn't develop character or arrive at a satisfying resolution.
Though it's longer and more complicated, Plainclothes brings to mind some of the many queer short films that are made all the time and turn up on gay websites like the French "Gay Cultes." They often go for a happy ending but sometimes not. This one ends with a violent, destructive coming out prompted by a misunderstanding that you may have anticipated. Plainclothes, which reportedly was shot in eighteen days, is as crude as those short films but lacks their sweet wistfulness, without seeming particularly "real," since it strives more for surreal and expressionistic effects.
What holds the film together and led to Magnolia's distributing it, as so often, is the acting, particularly by Blyth as Lucas and Tovey as Andrew, both with flawless American accents, and restrained conviction. Gabe Fazio is vivid as Lucas' "leech" uncle Paul, who is used to precipitate a violent finale. Maria Dizzia is vivid as Marie, Lucas' mother. There are lots of relatives, and secondary police characters to fill out the working scenes, but for all this detail, only the few, unsatisfying moments between Lucas and Andrew have any staying power.
PLAINCLOTHES, 96 mins., premiered at Sundance Jan. 26, 2025, showing at other festivals including Provincetown, Frameline, and Jerusalem. Limited theatrical release Sept. 19, 2025. Release in Northern California Oct. 3, 2025. Metacritic (https://www.metacritic.com/movie/plainclothes/) rating: 66%.