Curator Watchlist
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.
Where to watch: Buy
Sun · 1h 37m
Director: Carmen Emmi
Starring: Tom Blyth, Russell Tovey, Amy Forsyth
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.
Carmen Emmi
Tom Blyth, Russell Tovey, Amy Forsyth
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 😔
littlewomenfanpage (4★) · 812 likes
tom blyth gets fleabagged
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closeted desire, undercover policing, surveillance, forbidden romance, queer repression, 1990s New York, moral conflict, identity and secrecy
queer drama, crime romance, undercover cop, 1990s setting, surveillance, forbidden love, psychological tension, indie thriller, LGBTQ+, period crime