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Steven Soderbergh’s No Sudden Move is familiar territory for him, as cosy for those of us who love his work as a warm blanket. There are multiple echoes, homages, illusions and references to his previous work – especially in the casting, but also thematically, stylistically and tonally – wrapped up in a period piece, which is the most unusual aspect of the material for him.
That period is the 50s; the place, though, is Detroit, and seeing top-billed Don Cheadle in a mansion there – with a gun, no less – obviously evokes the incredible third act of Out of Sight. Indeed, Cheadle’s character here, Curt Goynes, is like an alternative version of Out of Sight’s Maurice Miller: there’s a stingingly direct reference to a prison stabbing that, in the right cinema with the right audience, would elicit howls of self-satisfaction.
Goynes is offered five Gs at the beginning of the film for a three hour (criminal) job; his partners in this crime will be played by Benicio Del Toro and Kieran Culkin, and along the way, as things get more and more and more and more complicated, he’ll encounter characters played by, among many others, Jon Hamm, Bill Duke, David Harbour, Brendan Fraser, Amy Seimetz, Julia Fox and Ray Liotta. Everyone has a great time playing various levels of scuzzbucket; so do we. This is Soderbergh very much en forme, working from a terrific script by Ed Solomon, and the film’s pleasures are constant and rich.