Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Rege-Jean Page, Marisa Abela, Naomie Harris, Pierce Brosnan, Tom
Burke
The 1934 mystery classic The Thin Man famously climaxes with
the married heroes - amateur sleuths Nick and Nora Charles - throwing a
dinner party designed to flush out the person responsible for the murder
they've spent the movie attempting to solve. Director
Steven Soderbergh and writer David Koepp draw heavily from
The Thin Man for their spy thriller Black Bag. Their movie similarly climaxes with a tense dinner party, one which
resolves itself almost exactly like its '30s predecessor, but it also opens
with a dinner party, one purposely designed to set its guests on edge.
The soirée in question is thrown by George (Michael Fassbender), a
very reserved British spy employed by an unnamed government service that for
all intents and purposes, is MI5. He's curated the guest list without input
from his wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett), who also happens to be a
spook. The guests are the chief suspects in the theft of a top secret
MacGuffin that could lead to the outbreak of WWIII, as is always the case
with such things. They also all happen to be co-workers of George and
Kathryn. There's surveillance expert Clarissa (Marisa Abela),
psychiatrist Zoe (Naomie Harris), and agents Freddy (Tom Burke) and James (Regé-Jean Page). Rather awkwardly for George, his wife
is also a suspect.
George uses the initial dinner party to subtly alert his guests to the fact
that he's onto them, even if he doesn't know exactly who he's onto.
Sandwiched between the bookending dinner parties we get a lot of classic spy
craft, with the various parties having clandestine meetings and using
underhanded tactics to snoop on each other. The plot is as nonsensical as
any James Bond movie, but Koepp's script makes it seem plausible. The
problem with many spy thrillers, even those of a popcorn variety, is that
they tend to get too hung up on their plots, and it's easy to lose track of
what we're supposed to be invested in. Koepp, one of the most experienced
screenwriters working in Hollywood, keeps it all nice and simple here, so we
never find ourselves scratching our heads.
The movie falls somewhere between the fantasy of the Bond franchise and
grittier British espionage dramas like
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, The Ipcress File and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, with Fassbender channelling the downbeat protagonists of all three of
those classics (all while sporting Harry Palmer's trademark black-rimmed NHS
spectacles). The plot is convincingly grounded, but we also get the glamour
of more fantastical spy movies, with a ridiculously good-looking cast clad
in impeccable fits. Soderbergh essentially does for the spy thriller here as
he did for the heist movie with his Ocean's films;
Black Bag offers us the chance to hang out with some very
attractive and charismatic actors as they flirt and finagle their way
through a breezy plot. I don't mean this as a slight, but
Black Bag is the perfect movie to watch on a plane: it's an
easy, unchallenging watch, but one that has enough drama to draw you in for
its duration.
The film's title refers to operations that secret agents can't discuss with
anyone else, and the movie cleverly uses this idea for an exploration of how
difficult it must be for two such people to be in a relationship. "Sorry
hun, black bag," is a convenient get out clause that allows for all sorts of
infidelitous possibilities. Fassbender and Blanchett are two actors who can
say a lot with a blank expression, making them ideal choices to portray
George and Kathryn. Every time they answer their other half's question with
a suspicious answer, we half expect them to do the Larry David eyeballing
schtick in the hopes that one of them might break.
Every cast member is having a ball here. Along with Harris we get another
Bond alum in Pierce Brosnan, now old enough to find himself playing
the M role (Brosnan got his start in The Long Good Friday, another movie that may have had an influence on Black Bag; Blanchett is certainly channelling Helen Mirren.) In Fassbender, Burke
and Jean-Page we have three actors all giving performances that might be
construed as come and get me pleas to the 007 producers, with three very
different takes on how that currently vacant role might be played. But it's
Abela who stands out most here, playing perhaps the smartest cookie of all
the film's very brainy characters. She gets the most fun role, a flirtatious
young woman who seems to enjoy the paranoid world of spydom, and she keeps
us, and George, guessing about her motivations.
At just 90 minutes, Black Bag gets in and out like a secret
agent stealing a hard drive from some shady facility. It's a fun time with
enough espionage to keep us engaged in its plot, but it's the quality of the
cast and their understanding of the tone Soderbergh wants to strike here
that makes Black Bag really tick. Brian de Palma fans will
enjoy an anecdote attributed to George's past, but which is clearly lifted
from that director's real life.
Black Bag is in UK/ROI cinemas
from March 14th.
