The Outfit is a 2022 American crime drama film directed by Graham Moore in his directorial debut from a screenplay by Moore and Johnathan McClain. The film stars an ensemble cast including Mark Rylance, Zoey Deutch, Johnny Flynn, Dylan O’Brien, Nikki Amuka-Bird, and Simon Russell Beale. The plot centers around an English tailor, or, as he prefers to be called, a “cutter”, (Rylance) in Chicago whose primary customers are a family of vicious gangsters. The film had its world premiere at the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival on February 14, 2022, and was released in the United States on March 18, 2022, by Focus Features. The film received generally positive reviews from critics.
In 1956 Chicago, Leonard Burling is an English cutter who runs a shop in a neighborhood controlled by Irish Mob boss Roy Boyle. Boyle’s chief enforcer, Francis, and his son and second-in-command Ritchie use Burling’s shop as a stash house for dirty money; Burling tolerates this arrangement as the Boyles and their men are his best customers. Burling also shares a complicated relationship with shop receptionist Mable, who is also Ritchie’s girlfriend. Mable has no interest in Burling’s trade and ownership of the store, wanting instead to leave Chicago and travel the world.
One night, Francis shows up at the shop with Ritchie, who’s been shot in the torso after a confrontation with the rival LaFontaine family, a black criminal organization. Burling is forced at gunpoint to treat Ritchie’s wounds and hide a briefcase containing a copy of an FBI recording with detailed information on the crew’s operations, which was provided by the “Outfit”, a nationwide syndicate founded by Al Capone that protects criminal groups from the law. Francis gets in touch with Roy and departs, leaving Burling and Ritchie alone. The two men converse and start to bond, and Burling takes advantage of Ritchie’s naivety to convince him that Francis is an informant and plans to hand the tape over to the FBI.
When Francis returns, Burling intercepts him, claiming that Ritchie is light-headed and delusional from blood loss. Ritchie threatens Francis, who is forced to kill him in self-defense. He and Burling then hide Ritchie’s body just as Roy arrives with his bodyguard Monk. The two men lie and tell him that Ritchie left the store on his own; Francis volunteers to go find him. Roy notices his son’s coat in the store’s backroom and threatens Burling, demanding the truth. Francis then returns with Mable in tow, claiming that he found Ritchie’s blood in her apartment. When Roy orders his men to torture her for information, Burling distracts him by revealing the reason why he came to Chicago: his wife and daughter were both killed in a fire at his former store on Savile Row.