Taking place in 1950s Detroit, No Sudden Move follows Curt Goynes (Don Cheadle), who has been hired for a job. It's a simple job. Just help two other criminals hold a family hostage as the dad, Matt Wertz (David Harbour), hands them critical information only he has access to. Tasked alongside Ronald Russo (Benicio del Toro) and Charley (Kieran Culkin), Goynes proceeds to go out and do this job for a hefty financial reward. Of course, things do not go as planned. Wertz doesn't have the materials the criminals need and trying to track down these papers leads Goynes to a much bigger conspiracy. What was just an in-and-out hostage scene is turning into something much more elaborate connected to how big car companies are adversely affecting largely minority populations.
Some films made for streaming platforms seem to take the lack of theatrical exhibition as an excuse to slack on their visuals. Not so with Soderbergh. Employing a constant fisheye lens on the camera, Soderbergh (acting as director and cinematographer, the latter duty he undertakes with a pseudonym) never wavers in his thoughtful blocking. Cramped spaces can be a great place to thoughtfully arrange the characters. Meanwhile, the warped appearance of characters on the edge of the frame functions as an effective reflection of how none of these characters really know each other. When they're on the outskirts of the image, they appear to us as murky as they do to their crime compatriots.
The screen is also rich with tiny amusing details, like Russo holding onto a beverage-filled glass from another hostage situation during a subsequent car ride. These are the kind of small elements that speak to how thoughtfully realized the acting and direction are. What a shame something like The Boss Baby: Family Business is occupying movie theater screens while No Sudden Move is relegated to streaming. Absorbing all the finer visual intricacies of this latest Soderbergh film is something that would be best accomplished if the film were projected on a gigantic screen. No matter, the craftsmanship on display is still apparent on a TV.
Ed Solomon's screenplay, meanwhile, is a jam-packed creation, one that sometimes loses itself in the weeds, but that also feels like the point. The viewer, like Goynes, is in over his head, the connections between separate antagonistic parties come across as intentionally hard to parse out. The occasionally murky story threads are also forgivable since the central themes of the film register as easy to understand. Chiefly, this is a film about how powerful institutions, from companies to gangsters to cops, only view people of color as objects to be wiped away at a moment's notice. Solomon's script makes a perfect match for Soderbergh's recurring rage as a filmmaker at everything you can get away with when you're wealthy.
The story and tone also make a superb fit for the ensemble cast assembled for No Sudden Move, which doesn't have a dud performance in the bunch. Don Cheadle makes for a compelling anchor to follow throughout the story, Benicio del Toro can play this kind of slimeball criminal in his sleep, and how can you not cheer seeing Brendan Fraser in a major 2021 movie? Best of this gaggle of actors, though, is David Harbour, who sheds all of his prior roles to channel big Phillip Seymour Hoffman energy as pretty much the opposite of the classical "Father Knows Best" archetype of 1950s dads. Watching him scramble and screw up at every opportunity is just a riot and Harbour plays all that befuddlement beautifully. You get a lot of thoughtfulness with No Sudden Move that will linger in your brain for a while after it finishes but performances like Harbour ensure there are also tons of entertaining qualities to enjoy in the moment.
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