This is a slickly made gangster film that takes place entirely within the confines of a tailor’s shop and is suffused with black humor. There’s probably a clever word for this specific genre but for the life of me, I can’t think of what it is. This kind of thing has all the hallmarks of a writer having great fun and is usually written by the director himself. Indeed this was the directorial debut of Graham Moore and he is also a co-writer. I found it entertaining and fun, though predictably for the genre there are perhaps one or two layers of obfuscation and deception too many. If I were younger, I would probably have found it to be great. As I now am, I think it’s cleverly written and that’s all it has going for it.

In 1956, Leonard Burling is a bespoke tailor from London, though he prefers to be called the more specialized term cutter, who has set up shop in Chicago. His only employee is his receptionist Mable Shaun, who dreams of making enough money to run away and travel. However his shop is also used as a drop-off point for cash and messages by the local Irish mob run by Roy Boyle. Every day, Boyle’s son Richie and his chief enforcer Francis visit the shop to collect the money and the messages. Leonard is aware that Mable is seeing Richie and worries about her. One night, Francis and Richie arrive at the shop after the latter has been shot in a fight with the rival LaFontaine gang. They have collected an audio recording that they believe is that of a rat feeding information to the LaFontaines and the FBI. Francis is unwilling to risk taking Richie to a doctor and so forces Leonard to use his tailoring skills to patch up Richie’s wounds. Leonard reluctantly does so but after Francis leaves to contact his boss Roy, he does his best to foment discord between the two.

This is the kind of film that feels very much like a play as everything takes place inside the two rooms of Leonard’s shop. Other characters come and go but Leonard remains in every scene. It plays to the trope of the seemingly harmless older man who is in reality extremely dangerous and devious. This is too predictable these days to be surprising but it’s still great fun and it’s nice to see that his talents lie not in being physically violent but in being a chess master able to plot around everyone else. He keeps up a running commentary throughout about the many steps needed to create a bespoke tailored suit and naturally this also serves as a metaphor for his plan on dealing with the gangsters. This storytelling technique helps to further cement him as an extremely competent operator who is underestimated by everyone else. The result is a well-made and entertaining film with some glimmers of black humor as Leonard keeps up his English stiff upper lip no matter how dire the situation gets.

The film isn’t perfect about selling the deception however. Sure, watching Leonard tell bald-faced lies and having Richie laugh them off as a joke is part of the fun. But there are times when Leonard’s desperate scramble to explain incongruities sounds so far fetched that it’s a wonder he isn’t shot on the spot. Similarly the more layers the film reveals about Leonard’s plan, the less plausible the story gets and the less worried you feel about Leonard since it feels like he’ll come up on top no matter what. There’s no real underlying theme except for how difficult it is to get away from a life of crime and how mobsters instantly descend on anyone who is seen as being successful. Leonard is an interesting character, but everyone else including Mable is kind of generic. All in all, this film is easy on the eyes and entertaining but it’s nothing special and not likely to be remembered for very long.