Alex Moss EditorYou often hear about how they don’t make mid-budget films for grown-ups anymore. Everything has to be a potential blockbuster; already based on an existing IP with a built-in audience. Black Bag is the exception that proves the rule, and demonstrates why we need more of these films. Because Black Bag is a scintillating game of chess played out in in a truly fascinating character led thriller.
George (Michale Fassbender) and Kathryn Woodhouse (Cate Blanchett) are a married couple who both work for a UK spy agency. Seemingly devoted to each other they are also painfully aware of the strain their professional lives place on their personal relationship. So when there is a suspected leak within the agency it falls on George to sniff out the mole. Inviting his suspects over for dinner he plans on seeing how they react under pressure. Freddie (Tom Burke) is an unfiltered veteran, and all too aware of what might be going on. Clarissa (Maria Abela) is the youngster with a point to prove, while psychologist Zoe (Naomi Harris) is concerned by the ethics of what is going on. Meanwhile James’ (Rege-Jean Page) ambition makes him as determined as anyone to seek out the mole. With the meal over one things becomes clear to George; everyone is harbouring secrets, including his wife, so he must set off to uncover the truth.
While most directors are clambering to get bigger budgets, more special effects and the hottest actors on the planet, Steven Soderbergh has been quietly executing one of Hollywood’s most interesting careers. Black Bag is another entry to the catalogue of a filmmaker who is impossible to pin down. Yes, there are hints of his Ocean Eleven films here; the effortless cool, the gorgeous practical lighting and the killer outfits. There’s a hint of his Side Effects; that sense that you’re never quite sure who is manipulating who. But more than anything Black Bag feels like Soderbergh’s version of a Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy thriller. Highly intelligent people speaking in loaded, coded language to befuddle and dazzle in equal measure.
Regular Soderbergh cohort, writer David Koepp – another of cinema’s most versatile operators- delivers a script that is simply sensational. Dialogue so loaded that every inflection feels like a hand grenade and a plot so perfectly executed it feels like every secret, lie and promise is another round in the chamber of anyone brave enough to cross paths with these professional liars.
This is grown-up thrills. People in rooms saying one thing by implying the opposite. There are no gun fights, no car chases, no punch-ups or James Bond gadgets. This is spies using their wiles to determine who the real enemy is. And nestled, neatly, beneath the surface it is a commentary on relationships, how love, sex and friendship can become distorted if you allow them to be. It’s the kind of film that would arguably work well on stage, albeit missing Soderbergh’s irresistible flourish. And you get all of this and more in a watertight 90 minute run time. There isn’t an ounce of fat on Black Bag and it positively zings off the screen as a result.
The six core cast members are all on scintillating form. Blanchett oozes femme fatale sex appeal. Poker-faced and seductive, she’s impossible to read and all the more interesting for it. Tom Burke’s Freddie is wonderfully sarcastic, the kind of man who stares death in the face, a scotch in one hand and a glib remark just waiting to escape his lips. Marisa Abela, a stand out in the brilliant Industry, is the most obviously complex character, a youngster still learning her trade but exposing her true self as a result. All the while Michael Fassbender shines as our way into this world. His George feels one part George Smiley – as played by Gary Oldman in Tinker Tailor – one part Harry Palmer – as played by Michael Caine – and one part the Bond that Fassbender would have been so good as. He’s cool, yet needy, obsessive yet shrewd with this actions. He’s a delight to behold and the kind of character you’d happily watch in an ongoing series of films.
A wonderful puzzle of a film about the spy craft and how the most powerful weapon we possess is information about others. Keep giving Soderbergh these budgets because as was sung about a certain spy; nobody does it better.
