Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic These days, gay men can arrange sex by a smartphone app as easily as ordering a pizza. But back in the ’90s, when “Plainclothes” takes place, such trysts not only had to be coordinated in person, but could be punished by arrest. Audiences of a certain age and demographic almost certainly remember the risk and fear (not to mention the illicit excitement) back then, when undercover police monitored public “tearooms” for lewd behavior.
In writer-director Carmen Emmi’s “we’ve come a long way, baby” debut, the cops take it one step further, luring homosexuals into exposing themselves. But what if the officer in question was closeted and one of these strangers slipped him his phone number? That’s the intriguing — if credulity-stretching — premise of “Plainclothes,” which casts Tom Blyth (the outlaw star of Epix’s “Billy the Kid”) as Lucas, a second-generation cop with all kinds of identity issues. 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).
The police officers can’t speak during the process, lest the entire operation be considered entrapment. That suits Lucas fine … until he meets Andrew (“Looking” heartthrob Russell Tovey), who beckons Lucas to the last stall. Suddenly, Lucas is overwhelmed with feelings, which Emmi suggests by splicing VHS footage into the scene — a sophisticated if somewhat distracting technique for putting audiences in Lucas’ fragmented headspace.
Instead of arresting Andrew, Lucas lets him go, taking the stranger’s number and calling him to arrange a more conventional date. It’s around this time that Lucas starts to develop a conscience about arresting men for desires he shares — though he’s desperate to hide that dimension of himself from his mother (Maria Dizzia). Emmi
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Russell Tovey
Peter Debruge
Tom Blyth