No Sudden Move

Veteran director Steven Soderbergh's '50s-based crime-drama "No Sudden Move" has a fine cast & upbeat noir tone, but is swamped by Ed Solomon's convoluted script ("Chinatown"-lite). Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro & tv's enigmatic Kieran Culkin (underused) are hired (via Brendan Fraser) by mobsters Ray Liotta (married to Julia Fox) and/or Bill Duke for a job involving David Harbour & family (inc Noah Dupe)... which goes awry, attracting cop Jon Hamm & slick corp fixer Matt Damon, as they all twist & turn on each other (or do they?) over growing $$$ and a catalytic converter conspiracy. Ambitious & entertaining, but ultimately too confusing.

No Sudden Move is very much the sort of film you can expect from Steven Soderbergh: acomplicated crime scheme(involving numerous A-listers), with hidden intentions stacked on each other and all done with a distinct style. However, this movie's biggest setback is that this time the 'clever' plot goes a little too far. Even the most keen and attentive viewer will have issues following and eventually will probably be left behind by the ever evolving and frankly indiscernible story.

Was it a noir? Was it a heist caper? Was it a gangster movie? Was it an indictment of the automobile industries and the racism, gentrification, and pollution they heralded? Despite gritty performances and an interesting premise, the film is really all and none of those things: it is a mess. The tone is uneven and the film is not helped by a 360 kind of camera technique that often makes the film look like it is using google maps. If the film had maintained the very dark and brooding feel it began with, I think this film could have been excellent. Don Cheadle and Benicio Del Toro really were excellent. Sometimes a director tries to do too much.

First "Kimi" and now this as huge disappointments from Soderbergh who seemingly lost his mojo. Slow, messy, uninteresting, pretentious. Felt like 4 hours. There's only one scene in the whole movie I actually felt some tension, and it was in the first 30 minutes, otherwise, characters telling boring things about persons and events we are supposed to care or comprehend but we get so confused that we can't.

The thing with Steven Soderbergh is that you're not sure what you're going to get. Sometimes it's very good ( like The Knick, The Report, or Traffic) but on a rare occasion it can also be pretty mediocre or even really bad (like Schizopolis). No Sudden Move has a very good cast. All actors that know what they're doing so that wasn't the problem. The problem was the story. It's a complete mess, with so many twists and turns that nobody with a sane mind can understand anything about the plot. I don't know what Soderbergh was thinking. It's all much too complicated to be a good movie. It's all shot well, all acted well, but if the plot doesn't make much sense it loses all credibility. Too bad because Benicio Del Toro and Don Cheadle did a very good job, even with a plot that they probably didn't understand themselves. Maybe you need to watch the movie two or three times to understand everything but that seems too much of a hassle to me. I'll just wait for a better movie from Soderbergh.