Get the latest gossip
‘Plainclothes’ Review: A Closeted Cop Is Tempted by the Gay Men He’s Tailing in Steamy ’90s-Set Psychodrama
Carmen Emmi evokes the conflicted conscience of a police officer (Tom Blyth) who develops a dangerous crush on a sexy offender (Russell Tovey).
He seems relatively comfortable with the assignment early on, hanging out at the shopping mall, where his job is to catch the eye of an interested stranger, follow him to the bathroom and then bust the “pervert” once he does something illegal (which, in this case, is simply flashing his wares). Gay cruising depends largely on unspoken cues: a lingering glance, an interested look back, the conspicuous adjustment of one’s “basket.” Here, such behavior is not as sexy as Drew Lint’s “M/M” or as amusing as Tsai Ming-liang’s art-house “Goodbye Dragon Inn,” and yet, it’s encouraging to see these codes re-created by a young filmmaker, who uses mirrors placed directly above a bank of urinals to let the characters’ eyes do the talking. The hot-blooded cop is hooked, running Andrew’s license plate through the police database and proceeding to stalk him at work — a bad idea on his part, but a satisfying one, dramatically speaking, since doing so inadvertently exposes the man Lucas had started to believe was his soulmate.
Or read this on Variety