Although it sounds strange to say that a film about rapacious capitalism and systemic racial bias in corporate corruption and organized crime in Detroit 1950s has a summer vibe, No Sudden Move (premiere on HBO Max on Thursday) is a small-scaled neo-noir. It combines the packed cast and shaggy dog plotting of Soderbergh films Logan Lucky and The Limey with the embedded social criticism of The Informant! Or The Girlfriend Experience.AdvertisementCurt Goynes (Don Cheadle in top form) is the first person we meet as he makes his way from Black Bottom to a more upscale white neighborhood, supported by the jazz-infused beats of David Holmes. Curt is seen walking in the middle of the street for reasons that don't need explanation. He is a Black man living in a gentrifying area. We soon discover that he has just been released from prison and can't afford to be caught in the shadows. He can't afford to refuse the $5K fee offered him by Jones (Brendan Fraser), to perform what is billed as a three hour job for a local crime boss.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementSubscribe to the Slate Culture newsletter and receive the best movies, TV, books, music, etc. directly to your inbox. Signing you up was not possible due to an error Please try again. To use this form, please enable jаvascript. Email address: I would like to receive updates on Slate special offers. You agree to our Privacy Policy & Terms by signing up. Thank you for signing up! You can cancel your subscription at any time.Curt soon finds himself in a team with two small-time hustlers: the openly racist Ronald Del Toro (Benicio del Toro) or the jittery wire Charley (Kieran Culkin). Jones explains that their task is to care for Matt Wertz's family (David Harbour), who is a middle-level pencil-pusher at General Motors. One of them will accompany Wertz to his office in order to retrieve a document. It becomes more than just a MacGuffin. A major movie star appears in the final 10 minutes of the film to explain to the hired gunmen and the audience what the document means and why it is important, not only to the time but also to our own era.AdvertisementEd Solomon (who also wrote the Soderberghs TV series Mosaic and Men in Black) doesn't dwell on its larger political and historical points. The 11th hour clarification is so quick and comes too late that I could have used a little more explanation. No Sudden Move, like many of Soderbergh's previous heist films is an intricately plotted story about crime that allows the viewer to piece together the events at the same pace as the characters. Even though it does provide plenty of forward motion, this approach also causes more than a few moments.AdvertisementNo Sudden Move reaches its peak in an intensely suspenseful home invasion sequence set in the suburban kitchens of the Wertz family. Mary (actor-director Amy Seimetz), is getting her children ready for school when a trio of crooks, disguised and armed, invades her home. He protests that he doesn't know the combination and one of the invaders snarks: We hear you have it to your secretary! Seimetzs outstanding performance as Mary, a chain-smoking, tightly wound housewife, whose floral quilted bathrobe conceals her steely core, is one of the movie's best scenes.AdvertisementCurt's relationship with Clarisse (Lauren LaStrada), is less well-developed. He pays Clarisse a visit in what feels to be a fragment of a storyline that has been cut down. The female characters in No Sudden Move are generally underwritten. This is especially true when you consider how important they are to the story's progress. We don't know much about Vanessa (Uncut Gems discoveries Julia Fox), who is both the girlfriend and the abused spouse of Frank Capelli (Ray Liotta), nor about Paula (Frankie Shaw), who is the secretary at GM and is the frustrated mistress to the comically inept Matt Wertz.AdvertisementThe labyrinthine plot has other holes (it includes two crime organizations and two home invasions as well as two stolen documents). Curt and Ronald meet for the first time and establish a racial tension. However, this tension seems to fade a few scenes later. Jon Hamm (an FBI agent investigating the connection between the home invasions and the mob) is too late to the story and doesn't have enough screen time to make the twist that he is involved in much resonance.AdvertisementAs the double-crosses and betrayals pile up, it gets darker and more fun.No Sudden Move doesn't have the pleasure of understanding every plot point. You only need to understand that everyone is trying to make a name for themselves and that no one can trust you. The movie opens with a classic Warner Brothers logo. It is a nod to the studio's low-budget crime dramas of the time, such as I Died a Thousand Times or The Enforcer. Soderbergh emphasizes the point by shooting many of the more volatile characters from Dutch angles. This classic noir framing is the visual equivalent to that off-kilter score. Hannah Beachler's production design is beautiful without being Hollywood-lavish. Detroits ongoing project for urban renewal, or as one Black character calls them, Negro Removal is established through smart use of places as well as expository dialogue. Soderbergh's cinematography and editing, which he has done under the long-term aliases Peter Andrews and Mary Ann Bernard, are as fluid and elegant as they need to without getting in the way of the story. No Sudden Move, as is the case with all good heist thrillers, gets darker and more funnier as the double-crosses and betrayals pile up.This movie would be ranked somewhere between Out of Sight (which movie wouldn't) and The Limey (if I had to rank Soderberghs crime movies). But it would rank higher than Logan Lucky and the Oceans Trilogy's last two movies. Once the film is over, it's gone. For the hour and a quarter of fluid, kinetic filmmaking you will be in the capable hands of Steven Soderbergh. It is a consistently enjoyable place to be.
