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.

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.

Steven Soderbergh has turned his back on big budget movies. He now wants to make something more personal, idiosyncratic and still attract a starry cast.

No Sudden Move has crooks crossing each other to the Nth degree. It also takes potshots at the automobile industry and their attitude to environmentalism.

Set in Detroit in 1955. Curt Goynes (Don Cheadle) is a hood fresh out of prison and offered an easy job. Big money for just a few hours work by a shifty man called Jones (Brendan Fraser.)

Curt and two other men. Ronald (Benicio del Toro) and Charley (Kieran Culkin) need to burst into the house of Matt Wertz (David Harbour.) They will then watch over his family as Matt is taken to his office where he must retrieve an important document from his boss's safe.

The easy job goes south very quickly. Both Curt and Ronald though find a way to stay ahead and make money out of it. It is just a case of who to trust as everyone has something to hide or an angle.

Matt for example is having an affair with his boss's secretary. Curt has upset a lot of major people who want revenge against him. Ronald is having an affair with a gangster's wife. Nothing is what it seems.

By the end you just know no one is going to end up with what they are after. It becomes the film's weakness as it gets too convoluted as more characters are introduced. Although one character who mentions he cannot stop making money turns out to be absolutely correct. He ends up with more money even though he was the one being blackmailed.

Soderbergh has gone for a lo fi approach. Some scenes look slightly off with its fisheye lens. One thing is for sure Brendan Fraser looks even more porkier because of it.