Images courtesy of Focus Features
BLACK BAG– 5 STARS
The clandestine connoisseurs at the center of Best Director Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh’s exquisitely secretive Black Bag are all professional liars of the highest order. Working as spies, analysts, and officers for British intelligence, they bend truths and wills to their whims. They are master manipulators, much like Soderbergh himself, who’s pulled more cinematic wool over people’s eyes than the annual agricultural production of Australia across his storied career. When it’s Steven’s name below the title, one is almost guaranteed a dandy and provocative movie experience, and this is most assuredly one of them.
Black Bag opens on an ambitiously choreographed oner that follows a bespectacled man from behind. Strafing at shoulder level through the nighttime sidewalks, dance clubs, and alleyways of contemporary London, our well-dressed individual meets up with a contact who ominously reveals something called “Severus” is at risk and that a leak exists where our man works. When Soderbergh’s camera turns to reveal Michael Fassbender’s George Woodhouse given the task of finding and neutralizing the traitor—presumably preventing the deaths of thousands of people elsewhere—he casually adjusts his glasses and speaks up to say the mission will be done in a week.
This encounter commences Black Bag’s packed pace of daily chapter intertitles. The difficulty for George is immediate because one of the suspected names on the list he was given is his wife and fellow operative Kathryn St. Jean, played by Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett. After having been married and balancing their double lives for years, both are well aware of the gravity of partiality in this situation. George must choose between protecting the love of his life and his duty to his country.
LESSON #1: WHAT WOULD YOU DO FOR YOUR SPOUSE?— With betrothed understanding and seasoned communication, Kathryn knows precisely what George is undertaking. In a loving embrace, her questions of loyalty pierce her husband. She asks if he would lie for her and, with escalating passion, if he he would murder for her. George’s steadfast answer to both is yes, but there is one unasked question that remains between this ironclad union. Would he turn on her for national security? The smoky mystery of that question takes over George’s resolve in Black Bag.
The other four names for George to investigate are comprised of two fellow couplings at the office. The first are the gregarious Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke of Furious: A Mad Max Saga) and his younger squeeze, tech specialist Clarissa Dubose (Back to Black star Marisa Abela). The second item are George’s direct colleague Col. James Stokes (Bridgerton heartthrob Regé-Jean Page) and the staff-assigned psychologist Dr. Zoe Vaughn (Moonlight Oscar nominee and former Bond series regular Naomie Harris).
LESSON #2: RATTLING THE RATTLERS– How does one rattle the rattlers? Alas, George has an acute plan for probing his peers. Flexing the couple’s and the film’s affluent style, he invites the four over for a dinner party. After a homemade course of truth serum-laced tikka masala, George opens up an aperitif game of everyone declaring resolutions–-not for themselves, but for the person to their immediate right. The uninhibited verbal and emotional daggers unleashed spark more than a little suspicion and unspoken animosity. Meanwhile, there’s George—fearlessly and meticulously reading the room and narrowing his gaze. Black Bag’s game is afoot and regular Soderbergh composer and electronic specialist David Holmes (the Ocean’s trilogy), keeps the sizzle coming with his signature musical energy.
The increasingly perilous inquiry into the “stranger in our house” causes all sorts of character collisions. The big boss shadow of Arthur Steigltiz (the perfectly cast silver fox of Pierce Brosnan) looms with the international urgency generated by the unseen “Severus” MacGuffin falling into the wrong hands. Conjectures of infidelity threaten to divide the targeted couples. Dr. Vaughn’s role as the shrink who has been privy to deluged classified details from almost everyone could be a linchpin to the truth or another domino to fall. All the while, too many clues trace themselves, not to the other dinner guests, but back to Kathryn, a prospect that cracks George’s steadfast professionalism.
LESSON #3: DIALOGUE BEATS ACTION– As one character declares at a point of stress, they are tired of “suspicious hearsay and pillow talk.” That’s the entertaining magic of Black Bag, scripted by pliable Hollywood veteran David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Carlito’s Way, Snake Eyes). Every snappy line cascades with unbridled confidence spent on luring duplicity. The movie masterfully demonstrates how dialogue—when penned right and delivered properly with evocative acting—can beat kinetic action. While Black Bag is occcasionally thick with the espionage gobbledygook surrounding its MacGuffin, there are more zingers thrown in this movie than punches, and it’s entirely better for that trait.
Speaking of the acting, Black Bag’s devious contortions create standout performance spotlights for the ensemble cast decked out in lavish threads by Oscar-nominated Oppenheimer costume designer Ellen Mirojnick and moving through mother! production designer Philip Messina’s sleek and pristine interiors. The cold-and-calculated version of Michael Fassbender we’ve come to enjoy from the likes of The Killer beats his ranter-and-raver persona for this lead role. The man never so much as raises his voice, and we’re captivated by his intensity through those thick glasses and turtlenecks. Slivering at the same cadence is a Cate Blanchett as slick as the silk and leather she wears. Their robust chemistry creates a pungent aura clouding your observant allegiances on whether they’re innocent, guilty, or if the blame even matters because of how incredible they are together.
Because of all of this glowing style and sensational suspense, Black Bag is never dull, meaning Steven Soderbergh and his avant-garde arthouse tendencies are never pedestrian either. The prolific and experimental auteur—who put out the supernatural thriller Presence this season—has dabbled with and tamed multiple genres, yet Black Bag nestles itself into the storied “cool” wing of Steven’s film library. He could make one of these twisty yarns a year and we’ll never complain. May that man always stay this cool.
LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#1287)
