Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for No Sudden Move.
If you’re still reeling from that ending to No Sudden Move, you’ve come to the right place. If you have not yet seen the HBO Max crime thriller, then please turn around, watch it as soon as possible, and come back once you have.
The original film from writer Ed Solomon and director Steven Soderbergh offers up a heist movie with various twists and turns, all building to one final reveal that’s as surprising as it is devastating. When I recently had the chance to speak with Solomon about his work on the film, our conversation also touched on the ending and how he constructed the story as a means to moving the main characters higher and higher up the ladder, until suddenly they’re in the room with the big man behind the plan.
Set in 1954 Detroit, No Sudden Move kicks into gear with a heist gone wrong. Curt Goynes (Don Cheadle) – fresh out of prison – and shifty criminal Ronald Russo (Benicio Del Toro) are left to pick up the pieces when their mark, Matt Wertz (David Harbour), goes to retrieve a document they’re supposed to steal, only for the document to be missing. Ronald and Curt quickly realize they were set up, and the rest of the film follows them as they try to figure out why they were hired and what they’re supposed to be stealing.
We finally come to find out that the big MacGuffin of the film is the plans for a catalytic converter, and the purpose of stealing the converter wasn’t to use it, but to suppress it. You see, the catalytic converter is an exhaust emission control device for vehicles that would have greatly benefitted the environment, but would have cost auto companies a lot of money. So rather than implementing this new technology, they kept it hidden from public view.
The big finale of No Sudden Move puts Curt and Ron face to face with a man known only as Mr. Big, who masterminded the deal from the get-go. As it turns out, Curt has a personal bone to pick with Mr. Big, who is responsible for the redlining and destruction of prominent Black neighborhoods throughout Detroit in the name of “progress.” But both Curt and Ron bite off more than they can chew, and while they end the meeting with Mr. Big thinking they’ve gotten the best of him, Ron ends up getting betrayed (and shot) by his girlfriend Vanessa (Julia Fox) and Curt is kidnapped but ultimately set free by Aldrick Watkins (Bill Duke), who gives Curt what he asks for: a small sum of money so he can move away and start fresh. Mr. Big, meanwhile, gets all of his money back and then some, because in America that’s how the system works. The house always wins.
No Sudden Move is a movie that demands your attention, and I was eager to get the inside story on how this finale came together in Solomon’s mind. When I asked Solomon if he always knew how the story was going to end, he revealed that originally they planned for all the main characters to die:
“We had originally conceived of a much bleaker ending where none of our central characters walk away. We had a bleaker ending in mind, but by the time we got to the end, it really didn’t feel as satisfying. It felt like, wow, we’ve invested so much in of these folks and we can’t do that. This doesn’t feel right for what the movie’s turning into anymore. I knew where Don and Benicio were going to end up. I knew how Benicio’s character was going to meet his match. That was sort of baked in early. I knew that was happening.”
As for the notion that Curt was playing Mr. Big, that idea actually came from Cheadle:
“The fact that Don was running a game on a game, so to speak, was a product of Don reading the script and us realizing it’s not as satisfying if he’s not. Because he is the smartest person in the movie. At the end of the day, Don’s character is reading the room better than anyone else. It happens in every moment in the script and in the movie. So we realized it’s much more satisfying if he’s running a game on a game and that’s the final twist.”
But Solomon says they didn’t want this to be obvious, and in fact they wanted the audience to feel like Curt might not actually make it out of this alive. And boy let me tell you, they succeeded.
It was in crafting the characters of Curt and Ronald that Solomon hit upon the key tension within the film. “I knew that Benicio’s character, Ronald, was a character who started with a lot of promise and was on just a constant downward trajectory in his life,” Solomon says, alluding to Mr. Big recognizing Ronald from a business meeting. “I knew the jealousy that Ronald had about Curt always being slightly ahead of the game was going to play a role in how he related to Curt,” Solomon continued. “I knew that Ronald was going to try and screw Curt over and that ultimately, Curt was going to have to do the same.”
As for how Solomon hit upon what they were stealing, it was inspired by true history. “I was trying to think, well, what were they trying to steal?” Solmon told me. “And what was actually relevant at that time in Detroit in the auto industry? I was reading about how the car companies had colluded.” Indeed, the film ends with a post-script about how the car companies worked together to conceal information, which Solomon says came up in his research:
“I came upon the research about the catalytic converter and how it had been patented in the early ’50s and discovered. I mean, they really worked hard to suppress the information about any pollution control technology. What happened was Los Angeles sued the Big Four and won. The settlement dictated that the car companies had to share science and share information, and they did. It was the first time they ever shared information. They shared it to hide it as opposed to put it out there, which I thought was fascinating. And I thought, well, that’s much more interesting.”
Solomon revealed that in contrast to how he normally writes, he didn’t write the entire script in order, and instead wrote various scenes like popcorn popping. Although at that point, he and Soderbergh had already blocked all the major beats out, so he knew the story points. “It was just a matter of now filling in the characters and really fleshing them out,” he said.
As for the Matt Damon scene, where Soderbergh’s frequent collaborator comes in for a quick uncredited cameo and absolutely nails a huge monologue, Solomon admitted that was the most challenging scene to write:
“I think I had given Steven a treatment with a bunch of scenes written and some not. I remember him saying, ‘Okay, now I want you to write a seven-page monologue.’… Steven said, ‘I want to make an aria. I want to do an aria for a great actor to step in.’ I was like, ‘Wow, alright, this is a challenge.’ And I have to say, I bet it took me almost as long to block that out than to kind of block out the whole movie in a certain way.”
When Damon showed up on set, he had the entire monologue memorized. “He just showed up, walked through it and Steven went, ‘Man, why did we not shoot that?’” It’s one of the best scenes in the film. A true marriage of script, director, and actor that coalesces perfectly.
As for the notion that Mr. Big ultimately ends up with the money (and more), Solomon says that idea materialized organically:
“That idea came while I was writing that scene. I realized, ‘Oh, of course.’ When I was writing that thing about, it’s just money. I’ll always make money. It’s just money. It’s like a lizard tail for me. I make it when I eat, I make it when I sleep. And then I was like, ‘Of course, he’s going to get the money back. And of course, he’s going to get more. He’s just going to make money on this because that’s the way it is.’”
But for Curt, Solomon says he only ever wanted what he was owed, because in the past he got into trouble for reaching for more:
“I always knew that whatever Don walks away with, the idea of I just want what’s mine was baked in from the very beginning. That’s all he wants is he wants his piece of land that he wanted before he went to prison. That’s all he wants is to get to Kansas City and have enough money to put the money down on the land. He was a guy who was always going for too much in the past. That’s what got him into all the trouble. That’s what the whole Gotham Hotel mess was about. Curt was always reaching for too much. This time, he knows what he wants and just going for that. He needs to get out of town and get out safely without being killed. That’s why he’s running the game on the game.”
Indeed, for a film that gets really complicated and is packed with characters, it ends on an emotional note with Curt getting out of town (by the skin of his teeth) followed by the thematic wallop of Mr. Big recouping his money and the postscript explaining the true history behind the story.
“What’s funny is I truly was trying to write this very spare, very simple yarn, which I really thought I was writing,” Solomon said. “And then I watched the movie and I thought, ‘Well, I guess I didn’t do that.’”
Simple? Maybe not. Brilliant and exciting and thematically meaty? Absolutely.
No Sudden Move is now streaming on HBO Max.
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