In this case, the precise nature of that manila envelope’s contents will be revealed, and with its revelation, the scope of the affair expands to proportions greater than these criminals and the pair of gangster bosses (the great Bill Duke representing the city’s Black contingent, Ray Liotta standing in for the Italians) after them. They’ve come to compel him to steal some MacGuffin-type document, a vagary that a lesser film would allow to sit, its purpose of advancing the plot served. That delicate operation centers on crooks Curt (Don Cheadle), Ronald (Benicio del Toro) and Charley (Kieran Culkin) busting into the home of company man Matt (David Harbour, not just at his funniest but right at home in a cast full of men with beef-fed mid-century character-actor looks) to hold his family at gunpoint. Screenwriter Ed Solomon doesn’t overplay his hand while establishing this much, allowing its connection to the caper at hand to arise when the time is right. ![]() At any rate, he unobtrusively conveys the sociocultural context the average viewer will need: the Motor City is being carved up like a pie by the automotive giants at Ford, GM and Chrysler, leaving the human beings who have long occupied the area scrambling to hold on to the few rights they’ve got left. We’re whisked back to this period via rumpled vintage suits, the occasional bebop idiom dotting the dialogue, and a border-warping fisheye lens evoking a nostalgic past that may be more in Soderbergh’s imagination than cinema history.
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