Black Bag
Steven Soderbergh returns to the world of the slick, starry thriller, this time with an artificial, pretentious affair set in London.
His word is his Bond: Michael Fassbender
Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.
Black Bag is not so much a movie, more of a parlour game. Set in the world of super high-tech government intelligence, the film is a smug, mystifying thing that is far too clever by half. The director Steven Soderbergh has assembled a top-level cast, but has failed to instruct his actors to behave like human beings. When a mole has been detected leaking secrets to the Russians, the department head Arthur Stieglitz (Pierce Brosnan) grandly reveals, “there is a stranger in our house.” The dialogue is provided by the American scenarist David Koepp (Angels & Demons, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, Presence), whose characters address each other in neatly constructed sentences. This is fine when Koepp is writing the likes of Jurassic Park or Mission: Impossible (which he did), less so when his drama rests on the human dynamic between such closely knit colleagues whose lives and livelihood depend on an intercourse of openness and clarity. One might suspect that he is mining a degree of dark satire from the treasure chest of British spy fiction, which would explain the cast of an ex-James Bond (Brosnan), Miss Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and an actor hotly tipped to be the next 007 (Regé-Jean Page).
The principal protagonists are George (Michael Fassbender) and his wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett), who live in an opulent apartment and would seem to trust each other unreservedly. They both admit that they would kill for each other, although George begins to suspect his wife of subterfuge. Of course, this is the sort of film in which nobody is to be trusted, and when Kathryn fails to mention which foreign city she is visiting later in the week, we can understand her husband’s misgivings. Although they are both moviegoers, they obviously haven’t seen Prizzi’s Honor or Mr. & Mrs. Smith, in which the lovers in each film are required to kill the other. The one thing George will not abide is a liar, and he senses that Kathryn is dissembling.
There is some fun to be had here but the tone is straight-faced and lugubrious, while David Holmes’ intrusive, jazzy score fails to provide any hints as to how we are to approach the drama. Everything is polished to within an inch of its life, from the London locations to the sumptuous interiors, so there’s plenty to look at as we puzzle over the increasingly circuitous perambulations of the plot. With such good players on board, it seems such a waste of their talents, although Naomie Harris brings some nuanced humanity to her part as the agency’s psychiatrist, while Marisa Abela delivers good value as the department’s cagey satellite specialist.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Tom Burke, Marisa Abela, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page, Pierce Brosnan, Gustaf Skarsgård, Kae Alexander.
Dir Steven Soderbergh, Pro Casey Silver and Gregory Jacobs, Screenplay David Koepp, Ph Peter Andrews (aka Steven Soderbergh), Pro Des Philip Messina, Ed Mary Ann Bernard (aka Steven Soderbergh), Music David Holmes, Costumes Ellen Mirojnick, Dialect coach Jamie Matthewman.
Casey Silver Productions-Universal Pictures.
93 mins. 2025. USA. UK and US Rel: 14 March 2025. Cert. 15.
