Kimi is mostly just smart fun and I miss that.

A tech thriller as a commentary on the state of our surveillance state…sure. A fine piece of Hitchcockian subliminal filmmaking with a subtext about workplace harrassment and the built in protections for men that harm women, oh yeah, but mostly what makes Steven Soderbergh's “Kimi” work so well is where it succeeds most primarily, which is at being a taught, sleek, surgically tight thriller with a great performance at its heart.

At this point in his career Soderbergh seems alot more interested in straight storytelling than parading out on the pageantry of his own past in filmmaking. Some of his peers seem to be trying to relive the ghost of their reality, while Soderbergh just keeps exploring with curious glee new fun ways to tell a good story. Kimi doesnt conjure up any of the postured sheen of his Ocean's movies and only faintly recalls some of the washed out cool of “Out of Sight”, its not the raw provocative cinema of “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” but it is raw, it is cool, and it covers a familiar territory in movies with love and craft around telling a very good story. Every turn, close up, movement of the camera supports both the genre and David Koepps tight script. In fact Soderbergh is becoming a bit of a rangy director dedicated to making the best in every type of movie. His movies show a range that mirror that of folks like Wilder, Robert Wise and Michael Curtiz. His choices remind me of people whom I respect who decided to opt out of trying to live up to the phenomenon of their career heights ; Oprah Winfrey, Tom Brady, Kobe Bryant. People who others thought would not be able to wave goodbye to the things that catapulted them into the realm of the ubiquitous, but who seamlessly transitioned into new realities using and evolving their own particular style. While others shake their fist at the technology from which a film can made, or bemoan streaming to worship at the altar of the movie-going experience, Soderbergh is skipping down the streets making fantastic movies on his iPhone and releasing all kinds of fun unique fare like this on streaming sites like Netflix and HBOMax. The ease to his approach, this adaptive strategy extends itself towards and supports the movie and in a sort of spiritual way empowers it to be exactly what it is, a movie that understands the times and creatively finds ways into it rather than fight against it, and does it with a simplicity that makes me remember when movies weren't a choice between massive money making machines, and ornate self aggrandizing all important political treatises, but a smorgasbord of variety and when middle tier movies with thrills could just be well constructed good times without being insipid examples of filmmaking.

The mid budget thriller of the 90s was a thing to behold and really part of a fun era of movies. They could be masterful as was the case with “The Fugitive” “The Game" and “Thelma and Louise”. Pretty damn good as with the John Grisham trinity of “The Firm", “The Client" and “The Pelican Brief" or just “take your thinking cap off” fun as with “Dont Say A Word" or “Fallen", but what they all had in common was that the engine was star power. Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, Tom Cruise, Nick Nolte, Michael Douglas, Harrison Ford, Geena Davis, Susan Sarandon, Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, Wesley Snipes, Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Jodie Foster, and so many others headlined these movies, matching their lovably outlandish plots with lovably outlandish performances, or lending them a grounded authenticity, and many times both. We've been without real stars to carry these movies for some time, and so we have been without these movies, but two of Soderbergh's most recent in “No Sudden Moves" and “Kimi" while maybe not necessarily having the galactic pure star power of those folks, definitely have had the comfort of acting prowess and magnetism that matches the movies. In Kimi Zoe Kravitz shows shes teetering on crossing over into that realm as it is constructed today. The devices, strictures, and vehicles that make movie stars are just now there anymore but we do have these synthetic types like Kravitz who with a great turn in Batman could end up being that. That is a person who doesn't have the raw power of old Hollywood, but can certainly lead and carry a movie, has a portion of that “It" factor, and can actually act at a very high level not just provide a distinctive personality that can like the demon in “Fallen" leap from body to body being essentially the same being with no meaningful or soulful difference. Kravitz continues showing off the impenetrable vulnerability that has given her a place in the industry, but adds layers of effective physicality and depth that brings a very potent and watchable magic to the movie. As “Angela Childs”- a tech genius whose agoraphobia has been triggered by a vicious attack in he past, she shows a firm grip on the need for stillness, and the power of her face and body as it pertains to movement. A chase scene that comes to a conclusion in her apartment features some brilliant physicality to skillfully portray what a heavily drugged body high on adrenaline being pumped in by “fight or flight” would look like. In moments like the one pictured above she penetrates the camera even when her eyes arent fixed in its gaze. Its extremely hard to take your eyes off her and that's important in a movie that is about that kind of voyeurism and one in which thecamera moves like it's been placed on the rinse cycle. It does exactly what its supposed to do and Kravitz never reaches for anything beyond her reach while still clearly stretching her muscles. It's really good stuff, from an actor beginning to peel off her pedals and bloom, concise, agile, and straightforward in a movie that is as precise, exciting and flexible and both are fun to watch in symbiotic concert with each other. Co-conspirators in a plot to make movies good solid fun that can still be smart again.