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Plainclothes 15 rating

Tom Blyth and Russell Tovey lead a Sundance-prize winning ensemble in this knockout cruising drama from debut director Carmen Emmi.

Drama 2025 97 mins

Director: Carmen Emmi

CC

Overview

Andrew is illicitly cruising the bathrooms of a shopping mall when he meets Lucas, an undercover cop on an assignment to entrap and arrest men like him. An instant connection sparks between them, leading Lucas to abort his mission and confront the desires he’s long tried to suppress. What follows is a tense, intimate game of cat and mouse that threatens to unravel both men’s lives.

Tom Blyth and Russell Tovey share sensational chemistry in this gripping psychodrama. Carmen Emmi’s assured debut feature plunges us deep into Lucas’s fractured inner world, crafting a heart-breaking portrait of man at war with himself. Stylistic editing and mixed-format techniques vividly evoke the 1990s setting - when such cruel policing practices were commonplace - while lo-fi VHS footage plays with voyeuristic notions of surveillance and exposure. The result is a haunting story of forbidden love that powerfully explores themes of shame, control, and societal intolerance. Contains homophobic language and police brutality.

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