The director’s nifty new trick has him using the gloss of a crowd-pleasing heist movie to discuss race, industry and politics in 50s America
The difference between the heist movies made by Steven Soderbergh and the heist movies made by everyone else is that he takes as much interest in where the money comes from and goes as in the details of its transferral – the why along with the how. His thieves tend to be independent operators liberating massive sums from institutions on the winning side of capitalism, self-styled Robin Hoods for an age in which the phrase “wealth distribution” appears in public discourse with ever-greater frequency. They steal from the rich and give to the poor, as in the Ocean’s 13 con to force multimillion payouts from an elite casino to its patrons. Or sometimes, it just so happens that they are the poor, as in the boost from Nascar’s coffers by blue-collar West Virginians in Logan Lucky. All the while, the director has kept his eye on the big picture of who’s hoarding and who really deserves the cash in question.
The new
HBO Max release No Sudden Move further develops his career-long thesis on economic iniquity, though that phrase’s academic air has no place in a thriller so dedicated to the immediate pleasures of its genre. Soderbergh has personally stated his desire to make crowd-pleasing four-quadrant entertainment after all the industry pushback to his artier work (he clocks 2008’s Che as his last project before giving up this particular ghost), and emphasizes the gunplay, slow-burn tension and tough-customer posturing that makes crime fun. All the while, he’s pulling off a daring gambit of his own, using the rollicking excitement of a stickup gone awry to distract the viewers and studio suits while he’s busy smuggling in all the subversive subtext he pleases. His latest ideological sleight-of-hand has the audience keeping their eye on a taut, nerve-racking larceny
Job, freeing him up to make the movie about race, industry and politics in 50s Detroit that he’s really after.