Score: 3 / 5
There's a lot of joy to witnessing Steven Soderbergh returning, as he does every few years, to an ensemble-driven crime drama. He's the master at it for a reason, and since his premature "retirement" is now bunk, we can all be groveling with gratitude that he's back at it again. Sadly, this time his feature film is only streaming on HBO Max, meaning most people will see his beautiful work on a tablet, phone, or otherwise pathetically small screen. But Soderbergh's uncanny attention to detail and passion for men in sticky social and economic situations shines here, mostly overcoming this narrative's confusing plot and energizing what could otherwise be fairly boring material. It helps that the film gorgeously transports us to Detroit in the mid-'50s.
As with most grizzled detectives or gangsters in films noir, recently un-incarcerated criminal Curt (Don Cheadle) just needs one good job in order to get out of town for good. Partnered with Ronald (Benicio del Toro), they are hired by a mysterious recruiter named Doug Jones (a delicious Brendan Fraser) to threaten the family of a GM accountant named Matt (David Harbour). The gangsters are both desperate; we learn eventually that Curt is being hunted by a haunting figure called Watkins (Bill Duke), while Ronald is having an affair with the wife (Julia Fox) of mob boss Frank Capelli (of course, Ray Liotta). This tangled web of angry men is enough to spur the two gangsters to succeed in this new endeavor, so they can escape with their lives.
Possibly due to their precarious position, Jones teams them up with a mysterious third man -- much as Macbeth does to Banquo's assassins -- played with creepy efficacy by Kieran Culkin. Shortly after they take the accountant's family (including Amy Seimetz and Noah Jupe) hostage, they convince Matt to retrieve a secret item from his boss's safe; it helps that Matt's affair with the boss's secretary will grant him access. It doesn't help that all these people are suddenly thrust into a panicked frenzy and surreal circumstances, and it follows naturally that things don't go according to plan for anyone.
It's all an extraordinarily taut exercise in screenwriting from Ed Solomon (Now You See Me), and frankly a fair bit of the middle act was lost on me. Names dropped faster than I could catch them, and something about older men squabbling over wealth and behaving badly in pursuit of it is generally unappealing to me anyway. The focus shifts several times between characters, and I realized about halfway through that the main character at the beginning was no longer the main character. In fact, I'm still not sure now if there was a main character. And that's fine, but it requires another viewing to appreciate the plot's relay effect, and I don't think I have it in me yet. I found more pleasure in Soderbergh's delivery, as each scene drips with atmosphere and detail, working to place the audience keenly within the awareness of its characters. To this end, almost the entire film is shot (by Soderbergh as "Peter Andrews" again) with a fisheye lens, exaggerating the middle of the screen and warping the frame, forcing us into a magnified and myopic view of the scene.
I most enjoyed the film when I stopped trying to make sense of each character's name, occupation, and dramatic role, and instead let Soderbergh's style wash over me. It's melancholy and bitter and awkwardly funny, and unlike anyone else's crime thrillers out there. Moreover, even without full command of the story being told, its complex and unexpected climax and denouement hit me over the head with its central thematic concerns before I was able to really articulate what they were. No Sudden Move has a cynical axe to grind -- played out in the treacherous auto race, no less -- and its unsophisticated, greedy characters are determined to avoid that axe at any cost.
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