My Review of Plainclothes (2025)

 

Written And Directed by Carmen Emmi 

Lucas (to his mother): "It wasn't dad's letter, it's mine."

I've been wanting to see this movie for a bit now and I got to seeing it late last night. Theres a few gay themed movies that have been released the last two months I am determined to see before the year's out. This was one of them.

Tom Blyth has had something of an interesting career with his biggest role to date being in a prequel for The Hunger Games. In this movie, he's playing an undercover named Lucas Brennan. Lucas's assignment was entrapping gay men for public acts of indecency. Lucas was also revealed to be a closeted gay man himself.

Alternating between flashbacks and a chaotic New Year's Eve party at his mother, Marie's (Maria Dizzia) house, following the death of his father, Gus. It's a party that no-one will forget anytime soon because Lucas got into a physical altercation with his asshole uncle, Paul (Gabe Fazio) and outed him in order to preserve his father's memory.

Getting back to the flashbacks, Lucas fell in love with a closeted reverend named Andrew Waters (Russell Tovey). Lucas fell hard for Andrew, even protecting him from getting outed by the police but at the same time, Andrew might have been outed to his family. 

There's some nice sex scenes between Tom Blyth and Russell Tovey and both actors have nice chemistry with one another but Lucas and Andrew are a different kind of doomed. Lucas at least quit his job and came out to his family. He took the kind of steps that Andrew refused to do for himself.

Then again, coming out wasn't also a choice for Lucas. A missing letter had Paul and Marie mistake Gus for being gay and Paul's new girlfriend seemed to have an inkling about Lucas as well. Not to mention Lucas's former girlfriend, Emily (Amy Forsyth) definitely knew he was. Lucas really did have to come out and he did it very dramatically.

- There's a supporting role from Christian Cooke as Lucas's work colleague, Ron. Lucas was also replaced by Jeff (Darius Fraser).

- We can thank Tom Blyth for Russell Tovey's casting as he suggested him to director Carmen Emmi.

- Standout music: Emily Wells My San Francisco.

- Chronology: March to December 1997, New York. Lucas is from Syracuse while Andrew's from San Francisco.

Plainclothes was something of a mixed bag, movie. On the plus side, the chemistry and performances from Tom Blyth and Russell Tovey were spot on but it's also disappointing with how Lucas and Andrew ended up as well. The camcorder use in certain scenes did jar a little bit but it's still a good watch.

Rating: 7 out of 10