Black Bag (2025)
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Premise: A counterintelligence officer (Michael Fassbender) is assigned to investigate a leak. One of the suspects is his wife (Cate Blanchett) who also works for the agency.
What Works: Black Bag brings together a few niches within Steven Soderbergh’s filmography. It has the intricate plot and complicated interpersonal relationships of his heist pictures such as Ocean’s 11 and Logan Lucky but Black Bag also has the dark and polished look of pictures such as The Girlfriend Experience and Kimi. The design of Black Bag is extraordinary. The story takes place in a world in which every detail is important and that’s evident throughout the movie. The domestic and professional spaces are laid out and photographed meticulously. Although they don’t look very organic, the production design creates a fitting setting for these characters. George is a counterintelligence expert assigned to discover a traitor. He has an intense attention to detail which is conveyed through the filmmaking. The scenes of the coworkers socializing are staged especially well with the filmmakers picking up on the subtle tells and nonverbal moments. Black Bag is also surprisingly funny. The dinner scenes between the coworkers play like a comedy of manners. The characters get some biting dialogue and the banter between them is well delivered by the actors. Black Bag has a great cast led by Michael Fassbender as George. He’s paired with Cate Blanchett as Kathryn and together they have a complicated relationship. Black Bag is ultimately about the role of honesty and transparency in human relationships and the flimsy nature of trust.
What Doesn’t: There are a lot of coincidences built into the premise of Black Bag. Not only do all the suspects work in the same office, they know each other on a personal level and are placed in diverse but key positions throughout the agency. The film mostly gets away with it because the story starts with these coincidence but some aspects of the story don’t hold up under scrutiny. The agency psychiatrist (Naomi Harris) is in a romantic relationship with one of her patients (Regé-Jean Page). The intelligence agency is divorced from civilian government. At one point a character orders a drone strike apparently on her own with no oversight. George is presented as a Hercule Poirot-type who is able to figure out everyone’s secrets and personal faults but the film doesn’t give him any clues. He comes across superhuman rather than observant.
Bottom Line: Black Bag is an impressively produced thriller. Some aspects of the story don’t make sense but the detail and care with which it’s made and the wit of the performances make this an engaging movie.
Episode: #1039 (March 16, 2025)