BLACK BAG: 4 STARS. “spy drama fueled star power rather than fire power.”
SYNOPSIS: In “Black Bag,” a new thriller from director Steven Soderbergh, and now playing in theaters, Michael Fassbender plays a methodical spy who must choose between his country and his wife when a dangerous device is stolen, and she is a prime suspect.
CAST: Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page, and Pierce Brosnan. Directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by David Koepp.
REVIEW: “What’s on the menu?” asks Kathryn Woodhouse (Cate Blanchett) asks her husband George (Fassbender) at the film’s start.
“Fun and games,” he replies, and he ain’t lying.
Like John le Carré meets “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” “Black Bag” is a dialogue driven spy drama fueled by star power rather than fire power.
Steven Soderbergh, working from a script by his frequent collaborator David Koepp, creates a stylish, slick and suspenseful London-based thriller where people say cool spy things like, “This ends with someone in the boot of a car.”
At the helm is Fassbender. A master spy and happily married man, he’s a buttoned-down character in the John le Carré mode. He’s not a James Bond style bruiser. He’s reserved, a cold fish who once even put his own father under surveillance, concerned only with data and gathering cold hard facts. After one eventful dinner with all his suspects he says, “That was the rock, now I watch the ripples.”
Still, he generates heat in his scenes with Blanchett. They’re both spies, and as such, live in a world where there are secrets and not everything is what it seems to be. Their cat and mouse relationship is effervescent, providing sex appeal, domestic drama and intrigue as the limits of loyalty are tested. Their relationship just may give new meaning to the term, “I would die for you.”
A strong supporting cast—“Industry’s” Marisa Abela, “Mank’s” Tom Burke, “No Time to Die’s” Naomie Harris, “Bridgerton’s” Regé-Jean Page and Pierce Brosnan—add much but the real star here is Soderbergh and his crisp, fast paced and stylish filmmaking. Offset by a chic electrojazz score by David Holmes (who also scored “Out of Sight” and the “Ocean’s” trilogy), “Black Bag” slowly untangles its web of deception and keeps you guessing until the end.
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