Stream It or Leave It? No Sudden Move
Steven Soderbergh, the king of fast-talking slick heist movies is back
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Alright, listen up crew, this is the plan: Steven Soderbergh, the king of the fast-talking, slickly-edited, star-studded heist movie, is back on familiar territory with No Sudden Move.
Like the Ocean’s trilogy, the cast is deep and the double-crosses plentiful. But, this time, the movie was dropped straight onto streaming and comes with an unusual look, some heavy themes and a huge surprise cameo.
We follow Don Cheadle as Curt Goynes, a down-on-his-luck but deceptively bright small-time crook who is hired by Brendan Fraser’s shady Doug Jones for what appears to be a straight-forward heist job.
When it goes wrong, he finds a complex web of organized crime and industrial espionage in a race-torn 1954 Detroit.
“A group of gangsters, cops, and mistresses go from their asses to their elbows, trying to one-up each other, all in the name of cars and capital secrets in 1950s Detroit. But why?” as Shindy put it.
According to Jeff, the rollercoaster film is a “karmic treadmill.” Or perhaps carmic?
So, do you take the job? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
Mat: When the man behind the Ocean’s trilogy casually drops a shiny new heist film exclusively on streaming, we need to check it out. He's done smaller movies for Netflix and HBO in the past, but this is more your popcorn movie. [Streaming] might be the future. On top of that, it had a huge cast and great word of mouth.
Our first impressions and all-time top Steven Soderbergh films (03:17)
Jeff: It’s a really great cast. But with lots of characters, having all of them introduced so rapidly, you risk not being able to find somebody to be sympathetic about. So that was an early problem. It was tough to get through a little bit.
Shindy: I found it to be a yawn, and a bit complex. It had weird ‘True Detective’ Season 2 vibes: weird language and subplots mingling with each other without really any substance. [Soderbergh] was over-ambitious to try to tie a lot of different characters and plots together. But there were a couple of nuggets that I really did enjoy.
Mat: It was an absolute treat. You just felt like you were in very capable hands. It looked beautiful. The acting was superb. The pacing was great. You have this mystery bubbling away that you're interested in peeling the layers of, and at the same time, the plot is moving well.
The cinematography was interesting. It was all elegant and compelling, but then in the final act, as the reveals kept coming, there were just too many twists for me, although it brought in some very worthy themes.
Our top Soderbergh films of all-time:
Jeff loved the ‘chilling and strange’ vibes of Solaris.
Major fan Shindy can’t choose between Sex, Lies and Videotape or Erin Brockovich.
Ocean’s-hater Mat loves Out of Sight, the film that launched a thousand capers and marked the peak — and end — of Jennifer Lopez’s acting credibility.
Mat: [Jennifer Lopez’s] career was looking really bright. I resent that she decided she'd rather be a pop star than carry on this trajectory that she was building. She had good momentum!
That sound you hear is not the 5-0, it’s the Spoiler Alert (08:55)
Shindy: We've got some topics to unpack, unlike the film, which I'd be unpacking for a year. I had to ask myself whether one character was two different people. So… not a good sign for me. And I'm generally pretty good with complex films.
Jeff: I don't mind some of that opacity. I do appreciate this sort of “fog of war” concept, which is “the uncertainty in situational awareness experienced by participants in military operations” or in this case, a blackmail operation.
We're along for the ride, we don't have the pieces that are getting dropped and everybody seems duplicitous. So, yeah, I thought the plot was difficult to understand and it unfolded slowly in a way, but also, I enjoy that.
Mat: There’s this wide-ranging conspiracy, which brings in social justice, the environment, industrial secrets. But it was hard to stay on top of it. And the fact that [Soderbergh] needed an expositional monologue at the end, it felt like it was all jammed in.
I appreciate that he kept the running time short, but there wasn’t enough running time to get into all these things. I like twists — when you have a chance of seeing them coming. When you don't have a chance of working it out, then you just become a passive. And that's when it got frustrating for me.
On the rise of the car industry in Detroit with the racial politics of the time — while the industry titans are raking in money, whole Black neighborhoods are being destroyed in the name of progress:
Mat: The car industry comes in at the end, so that’s setting [the theme] up. Neighborhoods like Black Bottom were being levelled to put in highways.
Soderbergh’s camera techniques and capturing the ‘50s film era (16:10)
Between the language of the dialogue and the plotting of the film, Soderbergh achieved the effect of a 1950s-style detective movie. But more controversial was his intensive use of “fisheye” lenses, often in moving shots, reportedly to give it a period feel:
Shindy: I've seen discussion on this paying homage to fifties movies with these wide panning shots, I don't know if you guys noticed that? That was one thing in older movies, when, before they had all these effects, they would just go from one character to the other, in a slow wide pan.
Mat: I'm not convinced it had the effect he wanted it to have — I don't think the fisheye makes it look vintage. It does look odd, but to me, it was interesting. It felt fresh. As soon as I saw the camera pan, that's when you can really feel the effect. I thought, ‘Wow, this is cool. I'm interested to see why he's doing this.’
It was a worthy experiment, but I don't think it added an awful lot. The only thing I can think of is, maybe because you're watching this at home on a flat screen, by making the edges of the screen curved, maybe it's mimicking an old-fashioned TV.
Jeff: I like that! I read something that the intention behind it was to not let you forget that you're watching a movie. Because the larger story behind it is truthful and historical, but the specific characters — it's not a true story. So that's what makes me focus even more on what the characters represent ideologically rather than as human beings, you know, actual human beings.
Shindy: That's a good point because it had that sort of realistic feel, you know, felt like these people were biographically real people.
Casting: The good, the bad, and the underwritten (20:42)
We may not have had Brad Pitt, George Clooney, or Julia Roberts, but the cast was impressive, sprawling and perhaps even more interesting than in the Ocean’s trilogy.
Aside from Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro and David Harbour play starring roles, with smaller parts for Ray Liotta, Bill Duke, Jon Hamm, and Fraser.
Oh, and a cameo from the new king of cameos.
Mat: Don Cheadle was fantastic. It was a tailor-made role for him. He carried it really well and gave a lot of pathos to the character. And it was not the character that we often see leading a movie.
Jeff: As supporting actors, I thought Brendan Fraser and Bill Duke do a crazy good job. And I just like their vibe. They're counterparts, aren't they? They both have this menacing undertone. Like a “ghost in the machine” quality about this guy.
Shindy: It was nice to see Brendan Fraser … he also played a similar character in The Affair.
Mat: It’s interesting because when actresses age out of playing the hero-type character, it becomes really tricky for them. For male actors, they’re getting into these really interesting roles of antiheroes and compromised characters.
Shindy: I don't totally agree with that because there are a lot of actresses who, as they are getting older in their careers, are managing to find really interesting, challenging roles. Meryl Streep, Michelle Pfeiffer, Diane Lane, Jane Fonda to name a few.
I thought Don Cheadle nailed the accent. His was an interesting pairing with Benicio Del Toro. And David Harbour, he played that cowardly, good-for-nothing character really well.
Mat: Ray Liotta seemed to be on autopilot. I always like to see Jon Hamm, but I thought his character was underwritten. Everybody wants to work with Soderbergh. So, for even the small roles they're going to get a Jon Hamm.
Shindy: I think (Hamm’s) casting was too big for this role, because it’s lackluster. Even the very minor roles were played by nameworthy stars, like Keiran Culkin. And should we mention the cameo?
Mat: You've got such a deep cast and then you pull out a Matt Damon for the final twist. He came in at a time when I was getting a little frustrated with the story. And he was responsible for the big expositional monologue at the end, which I didn't quite buy, but it's becoming a fun thing for Matt Damon.
He had an unaccredited cameo in Thor Ragnarok. He did the same in Interstellar, which was another big surprise. It's fun, but I don't see him playing the man, the establishment, the capitalist villain. That makes me feel old and I didn't totally buy it.
Shindy: He’s playing the same character in most of these cameos, right? He’s the one who delivers the little, ‘hold up, wait a minute’ character. He's like, ‘this is the way,’ and ‘I am the man’. And it's a little odd. He's the person who makes people shift their focus away from the movie.
Mat: It’s a little showy and I think when you're coming to the final act, it takes you out of the story for a second.
Jeff: His character is exposition. He comes out of nowhere. He gives us this great big monologue, but in the scheme of fifties movies, you have that, you know?
It’s a throwback. Maybe it’s Soderbergh's replication of the monologue that happens in a lot of those movies. Usually, the power character is supposed to be some hero-type character, but in this one, it's the demagogic strong-handed capitalist.
Our favorite things about No Sudden Move (27:54)
Jeff: I really liked the setting, the re-creation of 1950s Detroit. The tension that was involved in the movie, it sort of reminded me of Quiz Show – the deceitfulness that was going on between the big television studio and the population.
Mat: I like the fact that it was kept under two hours. It's a big, big, pet hate of mine. I don't see any reason why any movie besides an epic should ever be above two hours. If it’s over two hours, it's got too much fat.
But at the same time, it was probably one of the problems here because it ended up being too jam-packed to succeed in the big themes it was trying to tackle. They would have needed a bit more time to slow it down. Or be a little less ambitious with the grand themes. There are just too many twists.
Which brings us to our hangups, and a major goof? (32:28)
Jeff: The overuse of the fisheye lens. It was fine to bring it in, but to me it was distracting because it appeared in so many places.
Shindy: For me there were parts of this screenplay that felt contrived. You see these played-out tropes: cowardly man, having affair with co-worker. And then, only after being abused or only after something happens: woman takes revenge. I've seen this before.
The screenplay is written by a man. Can we have some different storylines ... Why is it only after [women] are treated like shit they feel empowered? That was my main hangup with this. And then also the ‘50s language. I appreciate that they were trying to evoke the colloquialisms of that day, but I needed the subtitles! I mean, Matt Damon says, ‘the twain have met.’
Shindy’s biggest hangup and potential major goof in the film was no blood or brains in Vanessa Capelli’s car after she shoots Del Toro’s character in the head at close range.
Mat: I think she called Mr Wolf's grandfather, who started the business in Detroit…
No Sudden Move ending explained: Bleak or Redemption? (39:50)
Despite being ahead of the game, Goynes’ apparently greedy double-crosses almost get him killed. He is left with just $5,000 while the auto industry gets everything it wants – for now.
Jeff: The main thing that came through this movie is this contemplation on when enough is enough. Enough requires a certain restraint that capitalism doesn't seem to be capable of exercising until it's required by the higher powers that be, right? It’s this treadmill. There's no price to the system that's creating the problem.
Mat: Goynes does come across as greedy during the movie. But in the end you find out that it's because he's got such a price on his head the only way he can possibly get out alive is if he gives as much money as possible to the gangsters.
He just wants to buy a little piece of land, away from a town where black neighborhoods are being leveled to build highways — but Matt Damon wants more and more.Jeff: All [Goynes] wants is freedom. He wants his life back. He wants the five grand, which is roughly $50,000 in today's money. He's the yin to the yang of Detroit. He’s the personal restraint that only a person can exercise, but a corporation – who’s responsible? It’s an interesting balance, but it's a karmic treadmill. It's not that bleak because you can learn something from it as an individual.
Stream It or Leave It? (42:30)
Mat: Stream It – but watch Hell or High Water first, a superior heist movie also dealing with big themes.
Errors & Amplifications: Shindy refers to the lead actor of Hell or High Water as Chris Evans, not the actual lead played by Chris Pine, which apparently even Chris Pine himself has to clear up quite often.Jeff: Stream It.
Shindy: Leave it. To me, it should be called No Sudden Plot!
What Else Are We Watching? (44:24)
Mat: The White Lotus, a dark dramedy series on HBO Max
Jeff: Atypical, a coming-of-age series on Netflix
Shindy: An Unorthodox Life, a new reality series on Netflix