5 Years Later, Matt Damon's Gritty, Twisty Thriller Is Taking Over HBO Max

Published Sep 7, 2026, 5:09 AM EDT

Erik Hawkins is an award-winning writer and editor who's been obsessed with cinema since he was old enough to hold Roger Ebert's Video Home Companion in his hands. He lives in NYC, where he rabidly watches everything from the newest releases to the more odd and obscure, and regularly shares his thoughts on Letterboxd. From ghost-writing fiction and webisodes in South America to local news, trial coverage, and politics in NYC, he's rarely put down his laptop over the past 15 years.

Note: The following contains spoilers for No Sudden Move

Steven Soderbergh's wildly varied filmography is packed with final-reel twists, especially in genre delights like Out of Sight and the knowingly old-school heist films of his Oceans 11 series. One of his most earth-shaking reveals, though, was pulled off in the 2021 period crime thriller No Sudden Move — and he did it by subverting the charms of one of cinema's nicest guys, longtime collaborator Matt Damon. Of course, Soderbergh plays things a bit on the experimental side with his consistent use of fish-eye lenses and extremely modern, intuitive cutting, but the film plays generally like a classic noir — until its rug-pull.

Set in 1954 Detroit, the film follows a pair of small-time criminals, played by Don Cheadle and Benicio del Toro, who are sucked into a sprawling plot involving the mob and Motor City's corporate overlords. Soderbergh (serving, as he often does, as director, cinematographer, and editor) is in full auteur mode, as he paints a bleak and snappy, steel-hued thriller with a surprising contemporary relevance that emerges as the story turns. The underrated thriller is currently climbing the charts on HBO Max, as more discover its twisty pleasures.

What Is 'No Sudden Move' About?

In No Sudden Move, desperation is the name of the game, with Goynes (Cheadle), who's looking to leave town, and Russo (Del Toro) taking on the simple assignment of holding an automotive executive's family hostage while he retrieves unnamed documents from his boss's safe, all for a few thousand dollars each. Things quickly go to shit, though, when the documents turn out to be fake and Goynes and Russo's contractor — played by a delightfully sinister Brendan Fraser — orders them to execute the family. Goynes turns on his employer and soon discovers that what's really being sought are documents detailing a new automotive part prototype: the catalytic converter.

This turn detonates a series of genre-classic switches, double-switches, and sudden deaths, as it becomes clear that Goynes and Russo are up against not just the cops and the mob, but the Detroit auto industry itself. What's remarkable is how Soderbergh juggles so many balls, from enforcers and detectives to family members, while maintaining complete stylistic control, with the whole film giving off an effortlessly taut and cool aura that's simultaneously modern while still remaining completely believable as a period story.

Matt Damon Turns 'No Sudden Move' On Its Head In Sinister Fashion

When Matt Damon makes his still uncredited appearance in No Sudden Move, it's a twist that almost redefines the genre of the film into something more akin to cosmic horror — depending on your attitude towards U.S. capitalism. After so long at the bottom of the food chain, Goynes and Russo suddenly find themselves at the top, and discover not a monstrous gangster or freak, but a willowy, quietly confident corporate boss in the form of Damon's Mike Lowen. And all Lowen wants is to suppress knowledge of the catalytic converter, as it might put pressure on the auto companies to spend more than they like on minor worries like consumer safety and the environment.

Damon's monologue, given as both protagonists initially believe they have the upper hand, is a real feather in the cap of writer Ed Solomon, who told Collider in 2021 that the veteran actor arrived to set the first day with all of its bile and dread memorized. And when Lowen, a potentially just mid-level auto executive, gives the two crooks a crash course in capitalism, he simply reminds them why money itself is a lizard's tail when you get go his level: "I work, it grows. I sleep, it grows," he says.

This late-film sequence makes No Sudden Move linger much longer in the memory than you'd expect of an HBO Max-produced crime thriller. Soderbergh, despite his industry connections, is still hard at work demolishing national myths and just having a general good time, and the fact that he can do so in a potboiler like this is why he's a master. No Sudden Move is still a crackling crime yarn with a throwback-level cast of Hollywood royalty, but it's Soderbergh's eye and wit when it comes to casting and theming that makes it something special.