Plainclothes *** (2025, Tom Blyth, Russell Tovey, Amy Forsyth, Christian Cooke, Maria Dizzia) – Classic Movie Review 13,473

Tom Blyth (born 2 February 1995).

A married police officer meets a married clergyman, an unusual event in unusual circumstances, in debut writer/ director Carmen Emmi’s earnest 2025 LGBTQ+ drama film Plainclothes.

In New York back in the Nineties, gay trysts took place public loos but men were targeted by police and they could easily end up under arrest. Risk and fear, as well as illicit excitement, were high back when undercover police monitored public ‘tearooms’ for ‘lewd’ behaviour and set out to entrap and apprehend their victims.

Tom Blyth stars as Lucas. aka Gus, a promising undercover officer assigned as part of a small police surveillance team, to lure and arrest gay men in shopping mall a public restroom. He finds himself defying protocol and orders when he finds himself drawn to one of his targets, Andrew (Russell Tovey), and falls in love with him.

Then he does some daft things. No good comes of it. Lucas, who has split with his wife and is close to his mother, somehow thinks this casual sex can be the great love affair of his life and his salvation. He really isn’t thinking at all. He stalks Andrew, which is how he finds out he is a married clergyman. Andrew is shocked and appalled.

The Nineties settings, shopping mall, cinema, church and fashions combine with the VHS-style filming techniques successfully to re-create a realistically rancid era for gays.

Plainclothes is an interesting and sincere but dour and depressing Nineties-set gay drama, with excellent performances by star Tom Blyth, in an appealingly solemn turn of anguished pained looks, and co-star Russell Tovey, who is on the cool and chilly side here as a clergyman. The film has something on its mind, but exactly what it may be is hidden in the Nineties setting. There are three British actors in the main male roles, though they get a good US vibe. It is produced by Page 1 Entertainment and the London-based Lorton Entertainment.

The film is good, in its brooding introspective way, but there is no wow factor, though it feels honest and true.

Filming began in Syracuse, New York in March 2024 and it premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival on January 26, 2025, where, rather oddly, it won the Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast.

Russell Tovey (born 14 November 1981).

The cast

The cast are Tom Blyth as Lucas, Russell Tovey as Andrew, Amy Forsyth as Emily, Christian Cooke as Ron, Maria Dizzia as Marie, John Bedford Lloyd as Lt Sollars, Gabe Fazio as Uncle Paul, Sam Asa Brownstein as Christian, and Darius Fraser as Jeff.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,473

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