YMMV / No Sudden Move

• Jerkass Woobie: Matt Wertz may be corrupt and unfaithful, but he gets it pretty hard here. Him and his family get held up in their own house and witness a murder. He is then forced to beat up his boss to get the blueprints, which results in him getting fired from his job. His secretary then leaves him because he lost the money meant for them to go California with. At the end of the movie, a broke and unemployed Matt returns to a family who knows that he's a cheater and got involved with criminals.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Several people became excited to see the film when they saw Brendan Fraser on the cast list, as it's his first notable role in a major film in several years.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Curtis "Curt" Goynes is a streetwise crook seeking to turn a series of coincidences and bad luck to his favor. After deducing that he's being set up on a hostage job, Curt betrays and kills one of his partners and begins scheming against those who hired him, turning their own target Matt Wertz into his own personal stooge. Arranging ambushes and traps to take down mob bosses Frank Capelli and Doug Jones, Curt gains insight on their dealings and learns that Hugh Naismith is in the market for a set of automobile part blueprints. Curt masterfully sets up a deal with Naismith for the blueprints, then goes to Naismith's competitor Mike Lowen to extort even more money out of the two, ultimately handing it all over to mob boss Aldrick Watkins to pay back old debts and enable Curt to walk away from the twisted plots getting exactly what he always wanted: a fresh start, and the $5,000 to do it.
  • Mike Lowen is the head lobbyist representing the four Detroit car companies. When he hears about a catalytic converter being developed, a device that will keep pollution down, he resolves to have the documents on it hidden. When Curtis Goynes and Ronald Russo manage to track it down and sell it back to him, he meets up with them and launches into a very philosophical speech on the nature of race, class and control. He then leaves but his corrupt cops on his payroll manage to recover the money and he ends the film with all the money back plus extra. While the car companies eventually have to install the device down the line, no fines are levied, showing that Mike Lowen was ultimately right: he is in control.
  • Aldrick Watkins is the head of the black mob in Detroit whose code book Curt stole. Wanting revenge, he tries to set up Curt, but the latter manages to wiggle out of that trap. Curt later contacts him wanting to settle his debts. He asks for $5,000 and the chance to leave town. Watkins agrees to help him and even ends up with $125,000 only to later seemingly betray him. While apparently leading him to his death, Watkins is accosted by detective Joe Finney. He bribes the detective with $50,000 and the promise that he'll kill Curt, to keep racial tensions down. However he ends up letting Curt out at the harbor and the promised $5,000, showing that he's a man who keeps his promises.
  • Detective Joe Finney at first seems to be a heroic, blunt cop who wants to get to the bottom of the Wertz's family hostage crisis. Honing in on young Matthew Jr.'s exact wordage of the situation, Finney sees through the family's lies and discovers the truth behind Matt Wertz's dealings, tracking it all back to Curt. Allowing himself to be "bribed" by Watkins to let him have Curt for himself, Finney is soon enough revealed to have been on the take for Mike Lowen the entire film, having used his connections to track down and round up cash from criminals of all sorts and hand it all off to Lowen. Finney never once considers taking a dime of the cash for himself, appreciating his work as Lowen's muscle and continuing to get away with it for years to come.