There’s a lot of baggage in Steven Soderbergh’s latest stylish spy thriller.
As Steven Soderbergh’s “Black Bag” begins, an agent finds out that his wife, who is also an agent, may be among the five traitors implicated with a dangerous weapon. So, he must test the limits of whether or not his wife is bad. So let’s have Michael Fassbender looking stylish with glasses as that agent named George Woodhouse and Cate Blanchett looking and feeling seductive as his wife Kathryn St. Jean. Both have different last names and they work at the same agency in London.
There’s a code among the agents. And that code is “Black Bag.” Hence the title “Black Bag.”
Here’s some examples.
Question: “Where have you been?”
Answer: “Black Bag.”
Question: “What is the job?”
Answer: “Black Bag.”
As I begin watching the movie, I acknowledge that the two spies are in love with each other and maybe the wife isn’t the traitor the husband is told about. And we also get other supporting characters in their agency, consisting of George’s second-in-command James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page), the therapist Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris), the alcoholic spy Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke), the data analyst Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela), and their boss Arthur Steiglitz (Pierce Brosnan). So, there’s a lot for me to digest during my viewing experience. How will the story play out? Black Bag. How will the characters value our time? Black Bag. And will the film be thoroughly entertaining? Yes.
Here are some of the other elements to help elevate the Soderbergh entry.
Except for their boss, George and Kathryn invite the others to dinner, where George has a New Year’s resolution game, which starts to get personal between Freddie and Clarissa. And things start to get interesting.
The therapist Clarissa wants to give up her relationship with James, who responds: “This is the best break-up I’ve ever had”
And George wants Clarissa to help him spy on his wife, who is on a mission in Zurich.
Now this is the part where you accuse me of spoiling the film, and this is where I tell you I’m not spoiling everything. I want you to see how Soderbergh and writer David Koepp handle the subject matter of Spy vs. Spy, spouses, friends and enemies, and the big picture of all these elements combined. I like where this is going.
As both the director and cinematographer, Soderbergh makes his scenes look and feel stylish and riveting. Look at how the characters are photographed at the dinner table, the therapist’s office, a few fishing trips, and all the things that happen inside or outside the agency. And collaborating with Koepp once again (after “Kimi” and “Presence”), they both need to make sure the actors match the tone and characterizations of the people they’re portraying. Fassbender and Blanchett both lead the cast with charisma, and on their own or together, they have such a likable chemistry in such circumstances.
Of course ,with any ingenuous plot within the filmmaker’s mind, there is going to be an honest sense of humor and elements that remind us on his ability to follow Hitchcock’s rules. The last 20 minutes of the film are proof of that, and I felt like I was watching a movie from his time.
When I reviewed Fassbender in David Fincher’s “The Killer,” I mentioned how I imagined an alternate reality where Soderbergh was the director of that film based on the character’s balance and consistency. And “Black Bag” is their first collaboration since “Haywire,” and I think this is the better, sharper film. And I’ve heard some crappy things about “The Good German,” so I can’t really compare and contrast here, but I still think Blanchett works well in his filmography.
So, “Black Bag” is basically going after “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” and yet, it’s as original as the film claims to be.
