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‘Plainclothes’ Review: Tom Blyth and Russell Tovey’s Scattershot Cop Thriller Fails to Stin Find help us

About 20 minutes into Carmen Emmi’s thriller Plainclothes, which follows a series of undercover sting operations to capture gay men trolling for lovers in a suburban mall bathroom, I had little hope for it to amount to much. From the gauzy photography and shakicam imbalance, the entire first act felt like it was being told through gritted teeth, wanting desperately to elicit deeper empathy but instead coming across as manipulative and, frankly, boring.

Given its American Indie pedigree, this is usually the death knell for this kind of film; the sort of dreary, overwrought stuff that populates festival slates only to be soon forgotten on the dust heap of similarly overambitious films. Maybe it was a matter of succumbing to its charms, or simply a case of being beaten down to submission, but by the end of the film, I found myself almost swayed by what ends up being far more rich than the first moments would have indicated.

‘Plainclothes’ Centers on a Salacious Sting Operation Gone Awry

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The story revolves around Lucas (Tom Blyth), a young officer tasked with being bait in a homosexual honeytrap set up by law enforcement to sweep up men cruising for casual sex. Wearing a hoodie, jeans, and a sullen and pouty demeanor, he elicits attention at the local mall food court. When a connection is made, he follows the potential hookup into the bathroom down the hall, where behind a two-way mirror they capture the encounter on videotape, snag the so-called perpetrator on the way out of the mall, and lead them away in handcuffs for the illicit behavior of trying to surreptitiously seek out sexual gratification. When Lucas meets Andrew (Russell Tovey), a mustachioed man who looks more like a cop than Lucas does, sparks inadvertently fly. While Lucas lets his entrapped subject go without calling for arrest, Andrew slips a note into his pocket with a phone number for a later liaison.

From here the film manages to expand, not only to Andrew’s own relationship with a woman that’s strained by his increasing understanding of his own desires but also the way that his uncle responds to an openly gay cousin, ostracizing him from family gatherings and teaching Andrew about the painful cost should he decide to come out of the closet.

The film’s narrative bounces back and forth temporally, and while this adds a sense of suspense at certain moments, it mostly makes things scattershot rather than engaging. Decoupled from these jumps in time, the grand revelations are far less engaging than they’re presented, as if the shifting chronology masks what otherwise would be little more than a cliché-ridden, angst-filled story that leads to its inexorable conclusion.

‘Plainclothes’ Dreary Sordidness Becomes Unsatisfying

Image by Photagonist

Andrew and Lucas’ passions are well played out, though even in the midst of their brief moment of lust on the soiled floor of a greenhouse. it’s all shot in a way that feels more awkward and angular than emphasizing the genuine affection meant to be shared. Odd angles and the unforgiving light of the environment do little to make it feel anything more than sordid, which of course is part of the point. However, given that the rest of the film shares a similar pallor, from the mall bathroom to Lucas’ middling apartment to his mom’s claustrophobic kitchen, there’s never a clear visual moment that’s enticing on any level.

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Similarly, the way the performances play out feels just as beige and monochrome. Even heightened arguments feel forced and predictable, with very little that’s truly cutting. At the same time, other characters are so kind that they’re equally two-dimensional, never truly feeling like we’re getting anything more than superficial characterizations throughout.

‘Plainclothes’ Is a Worthy Watch Despite its Faults

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Image Via Sundance Film Festival

The story does manage to wrap itself up well enough in the end, and despite its many missteps, there are those who will be caught up in the various machinations as they culminate in what’s certainly hoped to be a shocking finale. Take it as a victory that the sheer novelty of a film of this subject matter has long been eclipsed by generations of filmmakers that have explored similar topics, and that its qualities cannot be lauded simply because its subject matter is considered so scandalous as to make the very telling of it an act of bravery. In fact, this may be the most retro thing about this film set in the not-too-distant past — the sense that somehow the very idea of these scandals, the pain caused by living secret lives, and the insidious police activities that criminalized gay behavior are to be automatically empathized with.

This is not to say that we’re completely removed from such abhorrent overreach by the criminal justice system, or that there aren’t many who struggle to this day with families whose own prejudices make life hell for their gay members. Still, as modern audiences, we’ve become accustomed to the more nuanced telling of these stories, with a better understanding of the various facets that Plainclothes tries to navigate.

While parts of it are laudable, unfortunately, Emmi’s film feels underbaked, never truly elevating its story to generate the kind of deeper effect that similar thrillers have managed to elicit. So, while Plainclothes may not stand as a total success, there’s still enough here to engage certain audiences. For all its faults, it’s still worth keeping in mind that despite all of our supposed advances in the areas of tolerance and acceptance. There’s still a lot to learn in the present just as there was at a time when cops were tasked with teasing out men at mall bathrooms just to pad the numbers on their arrest sheets and to sate the truly barbaric beliefs of those who condone such criminalization to this day.

Plainclothes had its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

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