Film Review: "No Sudden Move" (2021).

"Trust is a Setup" in No Sudden Move. This period crime thriller film directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Ed Solomon. In 1954 Detroit, small-time criminals are hired to steal a document. When their heist goes horribly wrong, their search for who hired them - and for what purpose - sends them wending through all echelons of the race-torn, rapidly changing city.

In November 2019, it was announced that Soderbergh would direct a film, then titled Kill Switch, with Josh Brolin, Don Cheadle, Sebastian Stan and John Cena attached to star. However, by late September 2020, Benicio del Toro, David Harbour, Jon Hamm, Amy Seimetz, Brendan Fraser, Kieran Culkin, Noah Jupe, Julia Fox, Ray Liotta, Bill Duke and Matt Damon rounded out the film's cast. At the same time, principal photography commenced and wrapped in mid November. Filming took place in Detroit, Michigan and was originally scheduled to commence in early April, but was delayed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Stan, Cena, Cage, and Clooney were originally cast but were forced to drop out due to scheduling conflicts after the movie's shoot was delayed from spring 2020 to autumn 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Though it hasn't been disclosed which roles all of them were set to play, Steven Soderbergh has mentioned in interviews that Clooney was originally cast in the role eventually played by David Harbour. The noticeably distorted shots throughout the film are the results of Soderbergh placing wider Kowa Anamorphic lenses, which already have considerable barrel distortion on their own, on a large Vista Vision-sized digital sensor that's 1.5x the size of the format they were initially designed for, as he wanted to replicate the imperfect lens characteristics and look of the early anamorphic lenses from the era the film takes place in. In fact, the film has the unusual aspect ratio of 2.16:1 because it was initially planned to be framed in the more traditional 2.40:1 anamorphic ratio, but the barrel distortion on some of those shots ended up being so distracting that he re-framed the entire movie to the taller frame to make it less noticeable.

The film stars Cheadle, del Toro, Harbour, Hamm, Seimetz, Fraser, Culkin, Jupe, Fox, Liotta, Duke and Damon. The film is a brisk and relentless story thanks to a killer cast and an inevitability that you feel in every twist and turn.

Soderbergh returns to the crime genre, but the film couldn't be more different than The Limey and Out of Sight, except for the fact that it's just as good. A first-rate crime thriller and further proof that director Stephen Soderbergh is one of our great contemporary film stylists. The film does suffers from a slim, somewhat underdeveloped script by Soloman, but benefits from Soderbergh's astute direction that posits Cheadle and del Toro as two small-time criminals. It's an interesting quest but there's no escaping that this is an overly familiar plot dressed up with some fabulous cinematography by Soderbergh.

Simon says No Sudden Move receives:

Also, see my review for Let Them All Talk.