Set and shot in his hometown of Syracuse, New York, with family members even making cameos, "Plainclothes" is clearly very personal to writer/director Carmen Emmi. It's much more than its plot synopsis,

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.

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.

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

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).

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.

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.