TL;DR – Sexy, intriguing, delightful, and also a bit tense. In other words, it is an almost perfect spy film.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

Black Bag Review –

It has been a long time since I have seen a spy film perfectly capture that intrigue, where you, the audience, do not quite know what is going on, yet you are profoundly compelled to find out as the machinations of the story unfolds in front of you. Narratively, that is hard to pull off, especially in the modern era where we have seen most of the story tricks you would use in other films. However, in today’s entry, we find a movie that nails that with class.

So, to set the scene, George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) and Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett) look like your normal highly successful power couple, bar one thing: they both work for one of Great Britain’s security services. Kathryn is a renowned field agent, and George is a security specialist whose polygraphs are legendary. They work well together because they know where all the professional boundaries lie. However, this is thrown asunder when a key analyst, Meacham (Gustaf Skarsgård), discovers there are only five people who could have stolen a highly classified weapons program, and one of them is Kathryn. What is George to do? Well, maybe invite every suspect to his house for dinner.   

The first thing that absolutely slaps about this film is the way the cast unconditionally throws themselves into their roles. That opening dinner, when we all get to meet all of them, is so revealing because it feels like you have gotten a glimpse into very real but also very broken people. Ones that are both chomping at the bit for their jobs but have also been deeply scared by them as well. That opening scene creates the foundation that everything is built on, and it is such a fascinating foundation to build on, even before the knives start flying. It is also here where we see the very particular visual stylings, such as the light bloom, that serve the film so well.  

Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett make an utterly believable couple. You know, the ones where the relationship is made up of two profoundly different people that should not work at any time, but as soon as you meet them, you know they are absolutely made for each other. It then becomes profoundly fascinating watching George work through the emotional problems of discovering if his wife Kathryn is a traitor when emotions are not his strong suit; control is where he likes to be. This is then helped by a supporting cast that is just delightful, which is essential because it helps add to the mystery. They allow the narrative to shift and turn and end up having some truly bonkers moments. However, it is also refreshing that all the characters are always intelligent and observant, as you would expect in their line of work.    

Much of the film builds on this notion of who could have taken Severus, and the film does an excellent job of obfuscating who that could be by mudding the waters with personal conflicts and emotions. If you have spent time in this narrative space before, you will likely be able to narrow it down, given how the evidence is presented in relation to the cast list. However, even if you do work it out, the cast is so strong, and the narrative progression is so engaging that you are still there to see how it all plays out. Structurally, this is a more restrained work than we usually see from Steven Soderbergh, but the deliberateness of how the camera flows makes it fascinating to watch. It is all about managing that tension, which you see masterfully done in that opening oner sequence. The Ocean’s-style musical score was a little jarring at first, but it kind of grew on me as we went through.  

In the end, do we recommend Black Bag? Absolutely. This was sexy, intense, and also just a lot of fun. While you might work out the destination, you will never be ready for the journey it takes to get there. Have you watched Black Bag? Let us know what you thought in the comments below. If you liked Black Bag, we would recommend to you Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Black Bag
Directed by – Steven Soderbergh
Written by – David Koepp
Music by – David Holmes
Cinematography by – Peter Andrews
Edited by – Mary Ann Bernard
Production/Distribution Companies – Casey Silver Productions, Focus Features & Universal Pictures
Starring – Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page, Pierce Brosnan, Gustaf Skarsgård, Dan Dow, Kae Alexander & Ambika Mod
Rating – Australia: M; Canada: 14a; Germany: na; New Zealand: M; United Kingdom: 15; United States: R