Soderbergh, Cheadle reteam for Detroit-set noir

NEW YORK — During the pandemic, Steven Soderbergh has shot two feature films, released a pair of movies, written a sequel to his first film (1989’s “Sex, Lies and Videotape”), re-edited some of his older movies (mostly for fun) and co-produced the Academy Awards.

It’s an amount of accomplishment that really puts to shame the 1,000-piece puzzle some of us are still proud of assembling.

Yet at a time when much of Hollywood is going through profound change, Soderbergh has, like few others, seized an uncertain moment.

“I think it’s fair to say that I’m the cockroach of this industry,” he said smiling on a recent interview by Zoom. “I can find a way to survive in any version that I’m confronted with.”

Soderbergh has averaged a film every one of his 35 years in movies, amassing a nimble, frenetic body of work spanning experimental iPhone indies (“High Flying Bird,” “Unsane”) to commercial crowd-pleasers (“Ocean’s Eleven,” “Erin Brockovich,” “Magic Mike”).

His latest, “No Sudden Move,” nearly didn’t happen. It was initially scheduled to begin shooting in April 2020. The pandemic scuttled those plans but by early fall, after he helped create return-to-set safety protocols, Soderbergh remounted it — albeit without one star, George Clooney, who withdrew out of health concerns for his asthmatic son.

Still, “No Sudden Move,” which debuts July 1 on HBO Max, doesn’t lack for stars. And while Clooney’s presence would have reinforced a spirit of get-the-band-back-together, “No Sudden Move” remains a cousin to one of Soderbergh’s most celebrated movies: 1998’s “Out of Sight,” the slinky, sublime caper adapted from Elmore Leonard.

That film opened in Miami sunshine but descended into wintery Detroit. Twenty-three years later, “No Sudden Move” returns Soderbergh to the Motor City with Don Cheadle, who memorably played Maurice “Snoop” Miller in “Out of Sight.” Since then, Cheadle has co-starred in four more films with Soderbergh (“Traffic,” the “Ocean’s” movies). But he’s front-and-center this time.

“This was designed as a vehicle for Don, whether he wanted it or not,” Soderbergh says. “Literally: I wanted to see this guy walking, walking, walking — and we parachute into this story.”

“No Sudden Move” opens with Cheadle strolling through 1950s Detroit. Soderbergh and screenwriter Ed Solomon conceived of the film from the start as a heist movie with a trio of thieves brought together not unlike those in Robert Wise’s electric 1959 noir “Odds Against Tomorrow.”

But while working on the script, Solomon came upon the history of the automotive industry’s efforts to avoid emissions controls. “No Sudden Move” begins with three hired guns (Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, Kieran Culkin), but in a multiplying series of double-crosses, expands in scope to encapsulate some of Detroit’s original sins, a little like how “Chinatown” does for Los Angeles. The rest of the cast includes Bill Duke, Jon Hamm, David Harbour, Julia Fox, Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon and Ray Liotta.