Casting Michael Fassbender as a militant wife guy who hates liars is certainly a choice when the Wikipedia on his personal life is just right there. Ew.
If it helps you endure that knowledge, Black Bag isn’t a sweet love song to marriage so much as a synth-jazz tune about loyalty. Equal parts Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, the film features a dinner party with an entrée that contains truth serum and asks a question that everyone has to wonder about their spouse: “Is this person in possession of a stolen computer program that can cripple a nation by means of a nuclear meltdown?”
Writer David Koepp and director Steven Soderbergh deserve a standing ovation for their commitment to economy in storytelling, economy in general being a very rare thing to be applauded for these days. The film wastes absolutely no time, showing us immediately that George (Fassbender) is a spy married to another spy, Kathryn (Cate Blanchett), who may have stolen the aforementioned doomsday software, which is code-named Severus.
Either Kathryn snaked Severus or one of four other colleagues of George did. The quartet is composed of two couples: Clarissa (Marisa Abela) and Freddie (Tom Burke), and Zoe (Naomie Harris) and James (Regé-Jean Page). Naturally, George invites them all over for supper. Everyone knows two things about ole George: He hates liars, and he loves his wife. He makes it clear that if those things are ever in opposition, as they may be here, he will choose the latter. So, he sets out to investigate and possibly protect his wife while crossing other suspects off his naughty list. This involves polygraph detectors, hacked satellites, and gunplay, the holy trinity of cinematic espionage tension.
Black Bag is quite tense, but in a slick and playful way. Sure, there is the much-discussed potential for a mass casualty event, but it’s really about where you draw the line of commitment in your relationship. The answer for some is apparently beyond “my better half may incite a nuclear war.” George and Kathryn’s terse, businesslike union lays calm atop a boiling stew of passion. The other couples are more nakedly volatile, and watching the three pairs play off their partners and other twosomes is a wicked delight.
What’s remarkable is just how tight everything is. Despite barely eclipsing 90 minutes, Black Bag finds time to give striking depth to its network of spies and spouses. From the sleek but believable headquarters to having a former James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) serve as middle management, the scope feels bigger and lived in than you’d expect.
Add all that to the fact that Soderbergh manages to play a fresh game of cat-and-mouse while inviting audiences to question what integrity and trust means in their individual relationships, and you have a stealthy-great movie posing undercover as a run-of-the-mill one. It may not be likely to stowaway onto year-end “Best of” lists, but it genuinely wouldn’t be out of place if it does.
Grade = A-
Other Critical Voices to Consider
Sarah G. Vincent says “Black Bag makes movies and marriages glamorous again and will leave you wanting more, but please no sequels or prequels that could ruin perfection. Lightning does not strike in the same place twice.”
André Hereford at Metro Weekly says “The hunt for Severus, and the implications of it falling into the wrong hands, prompt the film’s brief bits of big-budget espionage action. But jail breaks and drone strikes, it turns out in this case, can’t match the intensity of the blistering action around George and Kathryn’s dinner table.”
Angelica Jade Bastién at Vulture says “What ultimately cinches the dynamics of Black Bag is the chemistry between Fassbender and Blanchett. Individually, they are refined, glamorous. Together, they’re intimidatingly, pornographically so. It’s more than compounded beauty and charisma, though. This is a matter of complementary craft; of two great listeners and communicators bringing rapture to every gesture.”