Film review: ‘BLACK BAG’ by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’
Steven Soderbergh’s latest film, Black Bag is a frosty, talky, but intriguing Le Carre-esque British spy thriller where the events mostly play out through computer screens and spiky conversations rather than violent action.
Michael Fassbender plays George, an unnervingly clean-cut intelligence agent whose penchant for skivvies and thick-rimmed black glasses make him look like someone from the 1960s and a bit of a creepy sadist. When he learns that a mole in the organisation might be feeding secrets to the Russians and that the double agent might be his wife, Kathryn (Cate Blanchett) he sets about unearthing the truth. His covert quest forces him to surveil and interrogate his closest friends. All the while, a potentially deadly plan unfolds in the background.
While the broad contours of this story (written by Jurassic Park’s David Koepp) are fairly clear, the audience still has to pay constant attention and just about take notes as layers of deception and misdirection are peeled away. Every conversation is a probing cat and mouse game in which friends and colleagues try to withhold personal and professional secrets from one another. Also, the dialogue is at times so immersed in national security procedural jargon, it can be hard to follow.
Being such a dialogue heavy movie, it often feels like a filmed play and consequently relies very much on the quality of its performances. It would be hard to find two more reliable leads for that task than Fassbender and Blanchett. Fassbender is eerily icy, recalling his robot character David in the Prometheus films and the meticulousness of Frederick Forsyth’s “Jackal”. Initially, his grim manner feels a little forced but it ultimately suits the film’s foreboding tone. Similarly, Cate seems a bit flouncy, breathy and overly mannered at first but in the espionage world, her character is an actor so in the end the constant sense that she’s performing feels right.
A strong supporting cast includes Miss Moneypenny from the Bond films, Naomie Harris as a psychiatrist with the near-impossible task of trying to penetrate the psychological barriers of her secretive clientele. Pearce Brosnan also has a brief but memorable role as the division’s intense overlord. Marisa Abela, who recently starred in the Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black, also impresses as a feisty colleague unwillingly caught up in George’s plans.
One of the fascinating aspects of Soderbergh’s films is that they always have a distinctive look. With Black Bag, he conjures a forbidding corporate world full of clinical, meticulously arranged rooms and sharp angular surfaces; it’s a destructive and unforgiving place clothed in upper middle-class chic.
While the film hints at themes like the corrupting influence of extreme political views and the poisonous impact of the workplace on people’s lives, it doesn’t say as much about human nature and the human condition as its sober, quasi-intellectual style would suggest. As a showcase for an inventive director and for some of Hollywood’s finest actors, though, Black Bag certainly impresses.
Nick’s rating: ***1/2
Genre: Drama/ Spy film.
Classification: M.
Director(s): Steven Soderbergh.
Release date: 13th Mar 2025.
Running time: 93 mins.
Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM.
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