Black Bag: Film Review
Steven Soderbergh may have only just released Presence in January, but he’s already back in cinemas with the spy thriller Black Bag.
The film stars Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender as Kathryn St. Jean and George Woodhouse, married intelligent agents who work for the same organisation in London. When Kathryn is suspected of leaking highly classified information, George has to figure out if she’s the mole or if it is somebody else within their agency.
If you’re expecting a big-budget action spectacle like James Bond, you’ll be rather disappointed. Black Bag is an intimate, intelligent and dialogue-heavy thriller in which George tracks Kathryn and tests their mutual colleagues, including Freddie (Tom Burke), Clarissa (Marisa Abela), Dr Zoe (Naomie Harris) and James (Rege-Jean Page). It made me think of the title of Soderbergh’s debut feature, Sex, Lies, and Videotape, although maybe this one could be called Sex, Lies, and Severus.
Severus is the name of a potentially deadly software that one of them is suspected of stealing, or helping someone else steal. To be honest, I found that side of the story quite dry and hard to follow, and I struggled to fully engage with it in the first half. Thankfully, that’s purely a MacGuffin, as the main focus is on rooting out the liars and exploring the complex dynamics between this spy couple and their co-workers. That aspect is far more interesting, and the film becomes more and more compelling as George gets closer and closer to the mole.
None of the characters are given a great deal of depth because the less you know about them, the better the mystery. George keeps his cards close to his chest and is the suspicious and cunning manipulator sniffing out the rat. Blanchett brings star power as the sexy and alluring Kathryn, but she is a mystery to us, like she is to George.
Their co-stars are all solid (let’s ignore Harris’ patchy Northern accent) but the revelation was Abela as the flirtatious, bold and ballsy colleague with a crush on George. She is a lot of fun to watch, particularly in a lie detector scene, and she is responsible for most of the laughs.
Black Bag is a tight 90-minute thriller that takes a while to get going but really hits in stride in the final act.
In cinemas from Friday 14th March
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
