Plainclothes (dir. Carmen Emmi)
Certificate: 15
Running Time: 107 mins
UK Distributor: Curzon
UK Release Date: 10 October 2025
WHO’S IN PLAINCLOTHES?
Tom Blyth, Russell Tovey, Maria Dizzia, Christian Cooke, Gabe Fazio, Amy Forsyth, John Bedford Lloyd, Darius Fraser, Alessandra Ford Balazs
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Carmen Emmi (director, writer), Vanessa Pantley and Eric Podwall (producers), Emily Wells (composer), Ethan Palmer (cinematographer), Erik Vogt-Nilsen (editor)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
An undercover police officer (Blyth) falls for his latest target…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON PLAINCLOTHES?
The 90s were a weird time for gay people to just exist. Not quite at that point when society became as accepting and tolerant as we’d like to think of ourselves to be now, but also far from the days of being fully persecuted for simply being attracted to the same sex, the decade exists as something of a purgatory period in the chronicles of LGBTQ+ equality. However, as writer-director Carmen Emmi shows in his 90s-set debut feature Plainclothes, loopholes were consistently found and exploited by officials seeking to punish and shame people for expressing their sexuality, leading to heightened paranoia and anxiety among those who were afraid to come out at all.
In Emmi’s tense if slightly conventional psychodrama, the boundaries between self-acceptance and full-on desire form just part of a wider puzzle that seeks to piece together the uncertainty of being gay at a point in time when confusion and disarray clouded one’s own sense of identity.
Set in 1997, Plainclothes follows Lucas (Tom Blyth), a young cop who’s tasked with going undercover in shopping malls and other public places to attract and lure cruising men into exposing themselves under the pretence of engaging sexual encounters, before signalling his fellow officers to make the arrest. But upon luring a handsome fellow named Andrew (Russell Tovey) into his trap, Lucas begins to form genuine feelings for him and, after letting him go arrest-free, arranges to meet up with his former would-be victim. So begins a whirlwind romantic affair that soon pushes an increasingly unnerved Lucas, whose sudden attraction forces him to reckon with his guilt in persecuting others just like him, to deeply anxious extremes, culminating at a tense family New Years Eve party that bookends various portions of the story.
Emmi’s script takes a fairly familiar coming-out story, one that goes through many of the motions one expects from this kind of narrative, and emphasises the boiling paranoia within its lead character as it constantly threatens to pour over into unknown territory. The concern brewing within fresh-faced Lucas, played with bubbling intensity by Blyth, is that he won’t be accepted for who he truly is, having been raised in a somewhat conservative family and surrounded by deeply homophobic relatives, namely his obnoxious uncle Paul (Gabe Fazio) whose first scene shows him venomously throwing out his gay son and somehow proceeds to get worse from there. Even when courting Tovey’s Andrew, he uses his late father’s name to avoid his secret getting out – a decision that comes back to bite him sorely later on – which goes to show the discomfort that’s been planted deep inside of him by a society that’s still pretty intolerable towards queer individuals, not to mention deeply ignorant as the entire undercover operation he’s a part of stems from a baseless connection between casual gay sex and the molestation of young girls.
From the start, director Emmi places a suffocating atmosphere over Lucas as he slowly succumbs to paranoia and even obsession whilst trying to save face with his colleagues and wider family. Frequently, the film will cut to various first-person perspective shots that are framed and filmed like old camcorder footage, which at first can be a bit distracting as it initially seems as though he has an actual camera inside of his eyes, and given that Blyth is thus far best known for playing the younger version of a brutal dictator in a futuristic totalitarian world, it wouldn’t be such a farfetched sci-fi concept. But such an approach not only adds to the feeling of constant surveillance he and other gay men feel throughout (and rightfully so, as the police go so far as to covertly film them inside bathrooms), but also presents the character’s analogue mindset as it remains stuck in a consistent state of fear and regression, even when he thinks he’s found an outlet in Andrew who himself is harbouring secrets that prevent him from being who he truly is.
Despite its ambitious complexity, Plainclothes can be a difficult movie to fully embrace. It moves along at a fairly steady pace that keeps the drama focused, but hazardous editing often disrupts the flow with constant quick flashes of light that can be disorientating at best, while the framing device of this New Years Eve party is rather sporadic, further confusing the viewer as to how linear this particular narrative is turning out to be. There are also a few decisions made by some characters that are intentionally disagreeable, though this doesn’t necessarily make them any more concerning to watch unfold, as you’re almost cringing at the prospect of someone’s secret vices being unwittingly exposed by someone who can’t seem to take a hard no for an answer, which can make certain people less likeable than they’re meant to be.
However, most of that is forgiven thanks to a climax that is admittedly rather satisfying. Without going into detail, it’s the kind of ending where some of the most pressing concerns and frustrations finally become uncontainable, leading to some pretty raw moments that are extremely cathartic and surprisingly brutal, to where you never expected a movie like this to have full-on stunt work. It does make a lot of the film’s lesser aspects feel worth it, as you realise that it’s all been building to something that’s been a long time coming and delivered with such ferocity by the actors and Emmi’s direction that to go any further than it does would be to seriously undermine its satisfaction.
Before that point, Plainclothes is a strong psychodrama that is occasionally undone by its conventional nature and emotional coldness but still manages to deliver one hell of a payoff.
SO, TO SUM UP…
Plainclothes is a decently composed psychodrama that explores the paranoia and anxiety of 90s gay culture, and although filmmaker Carmen Emmi’s script occasionally slips into conventionality and emotional coldness, an incredibly satisfying conclusion manages to bring it all back together.
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