Movie · 2025 · Drama, Romance, Crime · 1h 37m · English
Curator score: 6.2/10 (40.6K ratings)
Everyone has a secret.
Overview
In 1990s New York, an undercover police officer receives an assignment to lure and arrest gay men. However, he's surprised to discover a scintillating connection with one of his targets. As their secret connection deepens and internal pressure to deliver arrests intensifies, he finds himself torn between duty and desire.
Ratings
Curator score: 6.2/10
IMDb: 7.0/10
Letterboxd: 3.74/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 83%
Metacritic: 65
TMDB: 7.3/10
Director
Carmen Emmi
Production
Lorton Entertainment, Page 1
Cast
Tom Blyth, Russell Tovey, Amy Forsyth, Maria Dizzia, Christian Cooke, Gabe Fazio, John Bedford Lloyd, Sam Asa Brownstein, Darius Fraser, Alessandra Ford Balazs, Joseph Emmi, Luke Burke, Marlene Mancini, Henry Stockwell, Ben Anderson, Jason Ngo, Charli Emmi, Oliver Fedrizzi, Emily Fedrizzi, Carmen Emmi III
Where to watch
MUBI
Curator Review
Verdict
A tense, emotionally charged queer thriller-romance with strong period texture and a standout central performance. It sounds most rewarding when it leans into surveillance, repression, and the danger of desire, even if some character beats are more familiar than the premise suggests.
Best for
Viewers who like queer romances with real stakes
Fans of 1990s crime dramas and undercover-cop stories
People drawn to tense, atmospheric indie filmmaking
Audiences who enjoy relationship stories built around secrecy and moral conflict
Skip if
You want a light or uplifting romance
You prefer straightforward genre plotting over mood and tension
You are put off by police-procedural settings
You want a fully polished, mainstream thriller
Overview
Plainclothes turns a high-risk undercover assignment into a pressure cooker of desire, shame, and self-surveillance. The premise is inherently combustible, and the film seems to make the most of that by treating attraction as both liberation and threat. The late-90s setting, grainy visual texture, and anxious editing give it a lived-in sense of dread that fits the story well.
Worth noting
What stands out most is the collision between genre and intimacy: this is not just a romance with obstacles, but a story about a system designed to punish the very feeling it awakens. The best reactions point to a strong lead performance and a final stretch that lands with force, suggesting a movie that knows how to build tension before releasing it in an emotionally messy way.
Bottom line
It may not be perfectly even in its characterization, but the concept, mood, and craft are distinctive enough to make it easy to recommend. If you respond to queer stories that are wounded, secretive, and psychologically charged, this is likely to hit hard.
Top Letterboxd reviews
bella <3 (5★) · 1716 likes
just give tom blyth every single character to play who will lose their mind over a situationship he had
jourdain searles (3★) · 1655 likes
sex so good you leave the police force?!?!
allain♡ · 1015 likes
haven’t quite realized how devastating it is to see the gay version of Fleabag’s “I love you, It’ll pass” scene, but here I am
(btw i watched this at 1 in the morning and my insomnia got even worse as i found myself just crying after watching)
alexandrabarry (3★) · 971 likes
Knee deep in the passenger seat and you’re eating me out is it casual now 😔