Plainclothes (15)

Syracuse, 1997. Promising undercover police officer Lucas is dealing with a breakup and the recent loss of his father. When he receives an assignment to lure and arrest gay men in a mall bathroom, he is surprised to discover a scintillating connection with Andrew, one of his targets. As their secret connection deepens and internal pressure to deliver arrests intensifies, Lucas finds himself torn between duty and desire.  

At his mother's New Year's Eve party, Lucas loses a letter no one was ever meant to read. With time running out and his secret life closing in around him, the evening builds towards an explosive reckoning where everything he's buried threatens to erupt. 

Harnessing lo-fi VHS footage to play with voyeuristic, tense notions of surveillance, Plainclothes is a story of forbidden love that speaks to pertinent themes of state surveillance and societal intolerance.