Steven Soderdergh is of course best known for the Ocean’s series of films which I’m not really a fan of but he has made more serious crime films as well. Judging from the praise it won from critics, I thought this period crime film would fall on the more serious side, and for a while it does seem that way. But after a rapid spate of mutual betrayals, this starts looking more like a darkly humorous caper film with an ensemble cast instead. It’s a lot of fun but it’s not a film that really cares about character development or even having them behave in ways that make sense.

Curt Goynes, a black gangster in Detroit, is hired as muscle for what is meant to be a simple job. Along with another gangster, Ronald Russo, he is supposed to babysit the family of an accountant, Matt Wertz, while another accomplice accompanies Wertz to retrieve a document from his boss’ office. Unfortunately the boss has taken the documents home and when Goynes realizes that the other man means to kill the entire family for the failure, he shoots him first instead. He persuades Russo that both of them are meant to die during the job as they are on the outs with the mob bosses and knowing the value of the documents, they go to the boss’ house for them. It turns out that many other parties are looking to steal the documents including Wertz who was the one to leak information about their existence and was planning to run away with his boss’ secretary. Goynes with Russo keep going up the value ladder in search of whoever is willing to pay the most for them and aren’t adverse to betraying one another. Yet no one seems to understand what the documents are about including the two of them when they read it.

This film is an odd mix of serious drama and dark humor which left me a little confused for a while. The pivotal moment is of course when Goynes along with Wertz’s family realizes that the other thug really means to kill the hostages and so Goynes takes action instead. You can sense how the situation for Goynes and Russo has the potential to spiral into a tragic dead end for the two men. But then we learn just how many people are after the documents, including Wertz himself, and it instead transforms into a standard MacGuffin chase where the two try to stay one step ahead of everyone else while also having to watch out for mutual betrayals. The film tries to keep the nature of the documents a mystery until the end but as usual with MacGuffins, it’s not really important. It gets silly when Goynes figures that they can always go one step higher up in the hierarchy to extract more value and even the wives and mistresses of the various men involved are willing to betray their partners for the documents. It stops being serious and becomes a caper where a succession of ever more recognizable actors show up as part of the plot. It’s entertaining but it’s more about trying to be clever than trying to be emotionally affecting.

Goynes for one thing behaves inconsistently. If he really isn’t the greedy one, why is he the one constantly pushing Russo to get a bigger payoff? Furthermore, we get no real backstory as to why the mob bosses in Detroit are out to get both him and Russo. Usually films like this try to establish a rapport between the two leads but not this one and it feels like there are two of them only to allow for more twists and turns in the plot. The bosses who are trying to buy the documents are the top executives of US car companies and there is seemingly a real basis to this story in history. But it is patently ridiculous that them colluding to suppress an unfavorable report entails getting hold of the physical copy of the report. This is why I tend not to like caper films unless the characterization and plot progression are both rock solid because they try to hide flaws and holes simply by moving fast and throwing lots of things at the audience.

I did still enjoy the film and I also feel that it has been overrated by critics simply due to its large cast and period setting. After the dark moment at the beginning, this actually ends up being more darkly humorous than anything but it’s probably not a film that will be remembered for very long.