Movie Review: PLAINCLOTHES

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: September 19th, 2025 / 01:24 AM

PLAINCLOTHES movie poster | ©2025 Magnolia Pictures

Rating: R
Stars: Tom Blyth, Russell Tovey, Maria Dizzia, Christian Cooke, Gabe Fazio, Amy Forsyth, John Bedford Lloyd, Darius Fraser, Alessandra Ford Balazs
Writer: Carmen Emmi
Director: Carmen Emmi
Distributor: Magnolia Pictures
Release Date: September 19, 2025

There are a lot of coming-out stories in movies (and TV series and plays and books and songs and other artistic expressions). PLAINCLOTHES is a new and very good one, not because it entirely fulfills the promise of its concept (it doesn’t), but because it is so astute about the details of human connection.

Set in mid-1990s Syracuse, NY (the 1996 pop song “How Bizarre” on the soundtrack sets the era, even before we see specific dates on camera footage), PLAINCLOTHES introduces us to young vice cop Lucas Brennan (Tom Blyth).

Lucas is already having brief panic attacks. Gay sex as such had been legal in New York since 1980 – much to the ire of the vice squad – but there are plenty of methods of entrapment.

Lucas’s current assignment is working plainclothes detail at a shopping mall, where he wordlessly lures hopeful male hookups into the men’s room, waits until they do or say something that crosses the legal line, then exits and leaves his police partner Ron (Christian Cooke) to make an arrest for indecent exposure or solicitation.

Then Lucas locks eyes with Andrew (Russell Tovey), bespectacled, in early middle age, who has a quiet, sweet approach. Something about Andrew touches Lucas, and the undercover cop sends the other man on his way without tipping off Ron. Andrew slips a strip of paper into Lucas’s hand with a phone number. Eventually, they meet up at a palace of a movie theatre.

This is Lucas’s first involvement with another man. Andrew is more experienced but has secrets of his own.

Despite the title of PLAINCLOTHES, director/writer Carmen Emmi focuses far less on Lucas’s moral conflict with his vice cop obligations – although these get their due – than with simply the emotional force of first love.

Because PLAINCLOTHES is so focused on what’s going on between Lucas and Andrew, and between Lucas and his family, especially his grieving but resilient mother (Maria Dizzia), we get less than the title would lead us to expect of Lucas on the job, especially after he falls for Andrew.

We obviously can surmise how Lucas is torn by the conflict between the personal and the professional. But, since this is the area where PLAINCLOTHES has something that makes it stand out in terms of subject matter, a bit of further chronicling of Lucas becoming more disillusioned with what he’s called on to do might have added extra texture.

Emmi effectively employs close-ups of minute, nuanced facial expressions to make points about unspoken drives. We may not fall head over heels, but we easily empathize with the characters.

PLAINCLOTHES ripples back and forth across its timeline, gradually clarifying the context of various opinions and actions. This creates a whiff of mystery that is not disagreeable but also doesn’t seem strictly necessary.

Blyth has great vulnerability and great rectitude. We would trust him in a position of authority and his predicaments move us. Tovey is wholly convincing as a charming man who feels the need to compartmentalize everything he does. Dizzia gives a soulful performance as Lucas’s struggling mother and Amy Forsyth has stability and warmth as Lucas’s ex.

PLAINCLOTHES is not a definitive look at a young man at a work/life crossroads. However, as a study of the nature of romance and attraction, it is highly impactful.

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