“Black Bag” - Film Review
Steven Soderbergh announced his retirement in 2012, but he can’t seem to give up filmmaking. Between 2012 and 2025, Soderbergh made ten films, and Black Bag marks his second flick of 2025. In January, after its premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, the Soderbergh-directed Presence, written by David Koepp, enjoyed a modest theatrical run. One movie a year is a feat in itself for most directors, but Soderbergh has returned in record time with Black Bag, teaming again with Koepp as screenwriter. Fundamentally different from Presence in almost every way, Black Bag proves Soderbergh’s return from retirement was certainly warranted.
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George (Michael Fassbender) and Kathryn (Cate Blanchett) are a happily married couple. Even though they’ve seemingly been together for many years, there’s still a deep spark between them. People at work view them as an ideal to aspire to. George and Kathryn are also legendary intelligence agents. George has been presented with a quandary: someone in the agency has betrayed the country, and the list has been narrowed to five people. On the list are George’s right-hand man (Regé-Jean Page), the agency’s therapist (Naomie Harris), George’s longtime friend (Tom Burke), the young agent quickly rising through the ranks (Marisa Abela), and the most surprising of all - Kathryn. George must now discover whether his allegiance lies with his country or his wife.
In Soderbergh’s 2017 film, Logan Lucky, about a NASCAR heist, one of his characters says that it’s like “Ocean’s 7/11.” It’s a play on the fact that Soderbergh is also responsible for the Ocean’s trilogy of films. If Logan Lucky is his “Ocean’s 7/11,” then Black Bag is his “Ocean’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith.” While Soderbergh didn’t have a hand in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, it’s one of the most recognizable films in which two married spies are forced to investigate one another. Where Mr. & Mrs. Smith ends in the titular couple burning their home to the ground, Black Bag does not. In fact, only one gun goes off throughout the entire film. The trailer doesn’t set these expectations, though. It makes the film look sleek, sexy, and filled with adventure, when the tensest moments of Black Bag unfold over a dinner table.
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To be clear, this is not a negative review of the film. In fact, the entire movie could have played out around George and Kathryn’s dinner table and that would have been a thrill of its own. Where the Soderbergh/Koepp team-up in Presence couldn’t figure out how to land that plane, the duo provides the smoothest landing possible in Black Bag. Blanchett and Fassbender are another duo who understand what it means to command the screen without needing to be over-the-top. Black Bag, while a spy thriller, is boiled down to something that infects every single person on earth. Can I trust the person I love the most? Can I trust my friends? Sure, Black Bag has a vague socio-political threat that looms in the background, but the real heart of the story is George and Kathryn’s marriage. They are two people whose entire careers are built on secrets, yet the key to marriage is transparency. Is it possible to have a truthful marriage that exists entirely in a web of lies?
Black Bag is an interpersonal drama masquerading as a spy thriller. The audience is placed in George’s shoes and has the chance to form their own opinions about Kathryn’s role in this betrayal. Never does the viewer feel like they’re in the dark to the point of confusion, but they are deep in the weeds of the compelling mystery. It’s a genuine thrill for a psychological drama to make good on all the promises it sets up in the beginning. Black Bag is a return to form for Soderbergh, the sort of intricately plotted heist film he became so famous for. In the case of the marriage at the heart of Black Bag, the only thing that was stolen was someone’s heart.
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