George and Kathryn are married spies for the same British agency. When he discovers she might be a traitor, he sets up a sleek, smart, twisty game to reveal the truth.
The team-up of writer David Koepp and director Steven Soderbergh has been highly successful, now with three films of excellence from the pair. In 2022, they gave us Kimi, a technical horror thriller update to Blow Out. Earlier this year, the pair turned the tropes of the haunted house subgenre in the first-person ghost movie Presence. Just two months later, they deliver another astoundingly put-together picture. Unsurprisingly, as Soderbergh is known for being an economical director, with an astounding ability to quickly set up beautiful scenes with amazing performances. In Black Bag, they continue to shift and play with tropes in crafting a smart, sexy, tense, tight ball of spy thriller drama.
Black Bag moves with a brutal, beautiful efficiency within its 93-minute run time. Not a moment is wasted as Koepp sets up characters, their world, and the stakes; playing it through with every satisfying beat. Every line, every gesture, every look has a need and importance. It’s a pure joy to watch it unfold, savoring every delicious moment.
Black Bag is a film where all parties, both the characters caught up in the drama and the audience watching it occur, are working on several layers simultaneously. George, played by Michael Fassbender with cool intensity, receives a list of five possible traitors at his agency, including his wife Katheryn, a sexily coy Cate Blanchett. With spies sussing out other spies, there’s always the question of who is telling the truth, who knows what, who is playing who, and what is being left out of it all. They all know it, and the audience knows it, seeing their own set of information to work the puzzle. Like watching a great magic trick, we know we’re being deceived, but the how is the draw.
It’s a set-up where any other time, each of these six would be the smartest person in the room, knowing the ins and outs of secrets, lies, half-truths, catching details, leading deception, and manipulation. All together, it’s a question of who can out-manipulate who. Unlike other films that deal with “smart” people, Koepp writes each of these brilliant people, well, smartly. There’s no technobabble to hide holes or fall into easy solutions. There are no dumb moves made just to make the plot move. Koepp and Soderbergh trust the audience to keep up, with no handholding in too direct exposition.
None of the layers of manipulation would work without a cast able to play all the levels. Fassbender and Blanchett have a smoldering tension with the sort of chemistry of a married couple who know one another inside and out. The remainder of the cast is perfectly matched. Tom Burke, Marisa Abela, Rege-Jean Page, and Naomie Harris pull heavy liftings flittering in and out of George’s focus.
Take note above that I wrote “drama” not “action” in the setup. Those coming for a Bond or Bourne spy adventure will be disappointed. Yes, there is an explosion, and a few people die; but no chases, no standoffs, no shoot-outs; heck, only a single bullet is fired. Black Bag’s sharp script is one of wit and subterfuge in devilishly witty conversation. It’s oddly funny without going for one-liners.
We’re working in the John LeCarre playbook of the banality of interagency knowledge, intrigue, and detail, with the wrinkle of the six central characters positioned as three couples. It’s delicious to dig into the level of relationships, how they work, or how people deal with the possible secret lives of their lovers; their strengths and weaknesses. The subtext within Black Bag is power, or lack of, in partnership.
John LeCarre by way of Edward Albee, with a very attractive cast. Smiley’s Sexy People; or Who’s Afraid of George Smiley if you will.
Black Bag is a dance of a film, deftly providing the steps leading to an exhilarating twirl. It has a sharp script with a devilish wit, layered performances, and actions, and wholly engrossing in the manipulations of the complex movements of story and character. Black Bag is easily sitting as my favorite film of the year.