Set in Syracuse, New York, in the mid ‘90s, Carmen Emmi’s debut feature revolves around a young cop assigned to a sting operation that forces him to confront his sexuality.

Writer-director Carmen Emmi's debut feature starts off shaky, and overuses lo-fi VHS footage but there's no denying the film's raw emotion.

The smoldering chemistry between the two is palpable, and Blyth is especially good as a young man wrestling with his identity. Plainclothes, though, is not strictly a coming-out movie, it’s a relatable story about infatuation and heartbreak, most of it communicated with painfully raw emotion by these star-crossed lovers’ eyes.

The film, which marks the feature debut of Carmen Emmi, follows an undercover officer (Blyth) who is assigned to lure and arrest gay men. His life gets turned upside down when he falls for a target (Tovey).

Exploring deep emotions and complex relationships, Tovey stars in the Sundance drama "Plainclothes," portraying an undercover cop romantically entangled with his target.

Plainclothes actor Russell Tovey tells TheWrap he wished his 1990s-set movie was "stuck in that time in history," but its themes still resonate.

Tom Blyth and Russell Tovey are fantastic together in, 'Plainclothes,' a familiar but fantastically executed coming out tale

Tom Blyth and Russel Tovey star alongside each other in a new, steamy queer thriller, Plainclothes. Directed by Carmen Emmi, the psychodrama follows the story of Lucas (Blyth) as an undercover police officer who’s assigned to seduce gay men and arrest them for indecent behaviour.

Tom Blyth may have starred in Francis Lawrence’s box office hit “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes,” but that doesn’t mean the British actor is moving on from independent film. Case in point: “Plainclothes.