by Robert Bouffard, Editor
“Economical” is a good way to describe Steven Soderbergh these days. Between the way he makes his movies, and how long his movies are, he gets in and out, with a quality time being had in between. After January’s Presence came in at under 90 minutes, Soderbergh’s second outing of the year, Black Bag, is 94 minutes, and each one of those minutes is packed to the brim with actors we love spouting David Koepp’s dialogue about the intersection between marriage and British intelligence.
British Agent George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) is informed that someone is suspected of betraying the country — it could be one of five people, including his wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett). So George and Kathryn invite Freddie (Tom Burke), Clarissa (Marisa Abela), James (Regé-Jean Page), and Zoe (Naomie Harris) over for dinner. Kathryn thinks it’s so that George can attempt to read their four guests — something he does so well — but what she doesn’t realize is that he’ll be reading her as well.
What’s most impressive about this movie is that in such a short runtime, Soderbergh packs so much in. We get scenes of George with each one of his suspects, as well as one-on-one scenes between just about every combination of the other five. But the real focus is on George and Kathryn’s marriage. It’s an open secret that no one in their line of work remains faithful to their partner, but these two do. At least, George thinks they do.
With this setup, Soderbergh has a spy genre package to investigate the institution of marriage. It’s about what we do and do reveal to our partner, and why, and how that does or doesn’t work in the context of the relationship. Perhaps it’s not always best to be completely honest? Perhaps there are things that are always meant to be private, even in a relationship that demands complete openness? The movie wrestles with these questions in an interesting, fun, sleek, and gripping way.
Inside this genre packaging, Black Bag is very talky. Each scene is an intense conversation with layer upon layer. Each character is always hiding something, deftly choosing what exactly to reveal to the person they’re talking to. Thankfully, each performer is game. Fassbender’s role is naturally reminiscent to that of The Killer, thanks to George’s steely robotic tone, but that’s something Fassbender’s done a few times, including when he literally played a robot in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. He’s good when he’s playing someone on the robot-sociopath spectrum.
As for the supporting cast, Blanchett doesn’t have much to do, but she brings her trademarked aloofness to the role. Abela essentially does Yasmin from Industry, but it serves the movie well. I like her in both those roles, though I’m interested to see if she has any other speeds. Conversely, having not watched Bridgerton, my only impression of Page is his intentionally charisma-less Dungeons and Dragons character. Black Bag is essentially a showcase that has charisma to spare. He’s really good in this. Harris, as his girlfriend and psychologist, is giddily sneaky and conniving; she’s great here. But Burke is easily the standout performance in the whole movie. I’m having a hard time believing that he’s not actually related to Orson Welles, because it’s uncanny in Black Bag. It’s like the energy of Welles’ characters in The Third Man and Touch of Evil just popped into a modern day movie, but with Burke’s majestic beard. It turns out casting Burke as Welles in Mank was deeply inspired.
Black Bag is about as good of a movie as you’ll see from Soderbergh that doesn’t have Ocean’s in the title. It’s engaging and fun, and had me giddy from beginning to end.
Rating: Loved It
Black Bag is currently available on VOD
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