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No Sudden Move

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2 men in masks in No Sudden Move

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Paul Asay

Movie Review

Babysitting never paid so well.

Sure, the sort of babysitting that Curt and Ronald do isn’t your typical “hang-out-with-an-8-year-old-’til bedtime-then-do-homework” sort of gig. When they babysit, they wear masks, carry guns, and sometimes “bedtime” is forever. When one of Detroit’s crime syndicates needs, shall we say, some “cooperation,” it’s found that aiming a few barrels at family members doesn’t hurt complaince.

Still, the fee feels suspiciously steep. It’s a three-hour job, they’re told—watching an auto executive’s wife and kids while the exec grabs a file from his boss’s safe. Curt’s getting $5,000—two grand now, another three when the job’s done. Ronald’s getting $7,500, though Curt doesn’t know it. (The two never met before, in fact, and don’t like each other much now that they have.) And then there’s Charley, the third member of their happy little babysitting club. Neither of them know him at all.

But when the exec—flustered accountant Matt Wertz—comes back, suddenly everything becomes as clear as an American-made windshield. Charley’s no babysitter: He’s a cleaner. And he’s being paid to wipe out not just the Wertz family, but Curt and Roland as well.

Curt figures it out right before Charley start pulling the trigger. So he pulls his first. And as Charley’s body lays bleeding and cooling on the kitchen floor, Curt asks himself, Just what’s in that file?

Nothing. Nothing in that one, anyway, and one of Detroit’s crime kingpins is plenty steamed about it, too. But there’s another file that plenty of folks would pay dearly for. And Curt—dreaming of a bit of land down in Kansas City—wants to get his hands on it.

Earning a few thousand to babysit a couple of hours is a good deal—if such a deal actually existed. But now, Curt and Roland have a chance to earn 10 times that, maybe more, if they can just track down that file.

But the life-and-death stakes are bigger, too. If babysitting can earn you a bullet in the brain, just imagine what double-crossing Detroit’s powerbrokers—both legit and dirty—might earn you.

Positive Elements

We gotta dig pretty deep to find someone we can toast for his (or her) good behavior. But Matthew, Matt’s teenage son, fits the bill.

When he discovers masked gunmen in his house, the first thing he does is jump in front of his mother, shielding her from any wayward bullets. And when the surviving gunmen leave (telling the family to tell the police that Charley was a lone home invader), he eventually tells the cops the truth. He feels pretty bad about it, knowing that his father might get in trouble (for perhaps getting involved with Detroit’s crime element in the first place). But his mother affirms that telling the truth is never wrong.

“We all make choices,” she tells Matthew. “And your dad’s going to have to deal with the consequences of his. You did what you did and it’s the right thing.”

I guess we could praise Curt for not killing the entire Wertz family when asked to, or for being generally the most humane criminal we see here. But let’s not get too carried away.

Spiritual Elements

Ronald and Curt sit down in a nice restaurant for (ahem) a business meeting. Ronald asks Curt if he’d like some wine, and when Curt refuses, Ronald says, “Wine is good for you. Ask Jesus.” Curt responds by saying, “So is a clear head. Ask Pontius Pilate.”

Someone talks about “not understanding the genius of God’s magnificent universe because I did not create it.”  We see a religious building, likely a synagogue, in the background of a scene.

Sexual Content

Ronald is sleeping with someone else’s wife. We watch her prepare for a tennis outing after the two presumably spend some bedded time together.

Matt is also having an affair, with his boss’s administrative assistant. His wife suspects but doesn’t know until the gunmen let the news slip: He might not have the combination to his boss’s safe, but he does have the combination to his secretary. Later, we see Matt and the secretary in a hotel room, she wearing a fairly modest nighty. [Spoiler Warning] There’s some talk of Matt leaving his wife for her, but in the end she leaves him for another man.  

Curt visits a woman who seems to be his ex-girlfriend. When a baby starts crying in the background, she looks embarrassed and he hurriedly leaves.

Violent Content

Charley’s death is perhaps the goriest moment in the film. Curt pulls out his gun and shoots the man in the head, splashing blood across the kitchen cabinets. His corpse is later shot twice more, in order for the death to look more like Matt defending his house from an intruder, and we see the face of lifeless Charley, eyes half open.

But while that might be the film’s bloodiest moment, it’s far from the only lethality we see. Another shot to a head leaves a spatter of blood against a wall (though the camera hurriedly cuts away). Still another is killed in the same way off camera. Someone is shot a couple of times in a public place, and we later hear that he also expired.

People are also beaten badly: One guy is punched repeatedly before being stuffed in a car trunk (still alive). Another is pounded in his own home office. A woman is brutalized, albeit off camera, by her jealous husband; we don’t see or even hear the blows, but we do see her bruised face in the aftermath.

We’re told that Curt knifed and perhaps killed someone his first day in prison. (He says it was in self-defense.) Several people point and sometimes fire guns. Lots of threats are made.

Crude or Profane Language

We hear more than 50 f-words and about 16 s-words. Also uttered: “a–,” “b–ch,” “d–n” and “h—,” as well as 13 misuses of God’s name (five with the word “d–n”) and six abuses of Jesus’ name.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Ronald carries a flask wherever he goes, pouring its contents into everything from coffee to orange juice, and he drinks elsewhere as well. He’s never presented as fall-down drunk, but there’s a suggestion that perhaps Ronald could do better if he didn’t drink so much.

A man gives another guy a bottle of high-shelf booze. He offers—and drinks—Scotch. Someone pops a bottle of champagne for an in-car celebration.

Mary smokes quite a bit, and it drives Matt a little crazy. (But it doesn’t keep him from taking a drag from Mary’s cigarette after a particularly hard day.) Several other people smoke cigarettes, too. Ronald smells a cigar, then sticks it, unlit, into his mouth.

Other Negative Elements

Do people cheat, steal, lie and double-cross others in No Sudden Move? Better to ask who doesn’t. Actually, pretty much everyone lies to one extent or the other (including Peggy, Matt’s about 8-year-old daughter). Most everyone wants to take something from someone else, too. A detective apparently takes a bribe. Most of the criminals we see are actively trying to double-cross other criminals.

Racism comes into play here, too. Tension between Detroit’s Italian and Black gangs underlies the whole story, which we see in the Italian Ronald and the Black Curt. Ronald initially refuses to sit in a car’s back seat with Curt and announces he doesn’t trust the guy at all. At one point, Ronald says that it’s not his fault: “You were born like that.”

“Born like what?!” Curt says, taking exception to the insinuation.

We hear about a code book, containing evidence of gambling bets, bribes and payoffs, that the underworld is looking for. The film also revolves around a real-world automobile collusion scandal, in which big American manufacturers barred anti-pollution technology from being incorporated into its cars.

Conclusion

No Sudden Move tries to turn itself into something of a heroic underdog story. We’re asked to sympathize with Don Cheadle’s Curt; just a small-time crook who wants to make the big guys—be they crime lords or captains of industry—sweat. He saves a family from getting summarily executed. He tells us all about the small plot of land in Kansas City he longs to buy. He doesn’t want much: Just what he considers his and, maybe, a measure of justice. And the movie suggests that neither Detroit’s underworld nor its corporate interests nor even the government itself much cares about that.

But we can’t forget that whole “small-time crook” part, or that he becomes a big-time crook—and killer—as the film goes on.

In a way, you could argue that No Sudden Move is like an updated version of the Paul Newman/Robert Redford clever, classic caper movie The Sting (which won 10 Oscars, including one for Best Picture, in 1974): Everyone’s a criminal, but some criminals are worse than others.

‘Course, the film is plenty different from The Sting, too: It’s not nearly as fun or nearly as clever. Dozens of f-words and some sparse-but-jarring blood spatter pushes this well into R-rated territory. And while the film can be twisty and satisfying, the lack of any real praise-worthy behavior feels a bit criminal in itself.

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Paul Asay

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.