• Soderbergh keeps going- and here’s to hoping he makes one a year like No Sudden Move for as long as he can. This is his eighteenth (18TH) archiveable film.
  • Like Out of Sight (1998- and one of his best) this is shot and set in Detroit.
  • Soderbergh shoots fast and is a big part of his own crew (he’s his own DP and editor- both using pseudonyms) but David Holmes (Ocean’s Eleven, Out of Sight, Haywire) is back to do the energic. jazzy score. There are quick little scale splashes like Bernard Herrmann’s famous Taxi Driver
  • Soderbergh does not take long to introduce his trademark golden lighting scheme as Don Cheadle’s Curt Goynes walks into the barbershop at the two-minute mark. There’s a healthy dedication to his phenomenal visual design throughout.
  • Soderbergh leans heavily on the canted angles here – Benicio Del Toro in front of the dishes early in the film.
  • Soderbergh also has his trademark low-angle shots highlighting a carefully designed background (ceiling serving as mise-en-scene)—one standout is the General Motors lobby at the 27-minute mark.
  • Hannah Beachler (Moonlight, Black Panther) does the production design—1950s Midwest wallpaper, blinds.
  • At the 59-minute mark there is a large yellow/orange ball light fixture on the right side of the room of the Humpty Dumpty motel
  • A deliciously twisted plot—all about greed and mistrust. The raspy-voiced Cheadle leads an Altman-like ensemble. A standout is the soft-spoken Bill Duke. Matt Damon (as sort of an evil Robert McNamara figure) is here for yet another sort of surprise cameo (Interstellar, Ragnarok).
  • Recommend but not in the top 10 of 2021