In this film, Mark Rylance plays an English cutter running a high class tailor shop in Chicago of the 1950s. He treats all of his gentlemen customers with respect and discretion, especially the sharp suited mobsters who use the back of his shop as a drop box for messages. He takes a fatherly concern when his young receptionist Mable appears to be showing an interest in Richie, the son of the local Irish mob boss Roy Boyle. Mable denies that there is anything serious going on, sharing her dreams of travelling the world one day but having to be satisfied with her snow globes of Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower.
One fateful snowy night, Richie is dragged into the shop accompanied by the ambitious Boyle Capo Francis. The pair are on the run from the both the cops and the rival LaFontaine gang, and Richie has been badly shot and is in need of sewing up. Francis is also carrying a briefcase with a tape from a hidden FBI bug that he believes will prove the identity of a rat in the organisation.
From that point, the drama plays out with some satisfying twists with the tape as the maguffin. There are some tense (and sometimes bloody) scenes with Mark Rylance on top form as the voice of calm reason attempting to placate the hot headed men in power, echoing his best known role as Cromwell in Wolf Hall. The use of a single set and the claustrophobic air make this feel a little like a stage play, but that suits the nature of this story.
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