In espionage circles, a "black bag" refers to a covert mission wherein an intelligence officer enters a structure — be it technological or physical — to obtain information, usually of the sensitive variety. The missions are often secretive because of their delicate (i.e. probably not legal or moral) nature, and so any material associated with the mission exists on a need-to-know basis. The black bag itself usually takes the form of a purse, satchel or case, housing the tools of the game.
In his latest film, a stylish espionage whodunit, Steven Soderbergh pushes the metaphor of the "black bag" to the limit, often used as a crutch for cheating, lying and avoiding relationship responsibilities, while also serving a more clandestine meaning. Black Bag is scattered: entertaining enough and featuring some fine acting and directing, but monotonous and awkward, paling in comparison to the more accomplished films and books it's clearly aping.
The film tells the story of Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett) and George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender), a married couple of spies who speak mostly in veiled language and frisky double entendre. When George receives information that their branch has a leak and a British foe will soon acquire a powerful computer program, he decides he must investigate five suspects, including his dear Kathryn, in order to smoke the culprit out and prove his wife innocent — that is, if she isn't guilty. And so begins the chase.
The other four suspected secret service employees — Col. James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page), Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela), Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke) and Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris) — make their introduction during an extended dinner party where suspicions are raised, thus launching a plot that plays out in typical Agatha Christie fashion. Pierce Brosnan, clearly settling into his elder statesman role with aplomb, rounds out the main cast as their demanding director, Arthur Steiglitz. He devours the part, all pissy quips and uptight fury.
Fassbender has become adept at playing cold and calculating (Shame, The Killer), with a look so direct and penetrating, it's practically icy. In the film, he's an accomplished polygrapher who takes perverse pleasure in playing his cat-and-mouse game, even when he knows real lives, real people and real relationships are at stake. Yet it should come as no surprise to anyone that Blanchett, with her piercing gaze and unparalleled command of physical acting, owns the screen. She slinks about like the actual cat in the relationship, helping to compound the mystery until it becomes too much to handle.
While most of the supporting cast members perform exceptionally well, Burke commendably embodies the slimy role of Freddie wholly and diabolically. He's an obnoxious, pedantic, lecherous prick who we can't help but laugh with and want to strangle, exactly as it should be.
Soderbergh has always been a genre-hopping director, and many of the skills he's displayed in multi-layered films like the Ocean's series and Traffic resurface. Black Bag drips with influences from European neo-noir cinema, particularly films like Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion and the uncompromising works of Jean-Pierre Melville, resulting in a slower, more meticulous film, the bubbling anti-action taking place over a period of one week, give or take a few days.
While writer David Koepp's dialogue often proves provocative yet stilted, Soderbergh frames and directs these scenes with surprising patience, settling on a vibe that borders on erotically charged melodrama. The film is rife with scandal and conspiracy, and Soderbergh and his cast lean into some of the cheesier elements with a salacious wink. The glitchy, rattled score (courtesy of frequent Soderbergh collaborator David Holmes) ups the tension, even in the more mediocre moments, and, thankfully, characters use the spy gadgets that Koepp employs to propel the story forward, not too gratuitously or fantastical.
With Soderbergh pulling double duty as director and cinematographer, Black Bag is predictably sleek and methodical, but it also borders on the uncanny. It's often too sleek and too methodical — the film becoming detached from itself and its characters, unable to achieve the cool, cryptic tone it so desperately chases throughout its runtime. Maybe it's supposed to represent George himself, but that much meta doesn't make for very exciting cinema.
The film's opening scene exemplifies this failure: a long, snaking one shot that follows George from a London back alley to the street, through an underground club filled with multiple backrooms, before returning to the street for a meeting between George and his contact. While it lets Soderbergh flex his long-take muscle, it also feels unnecessary, the epitome of style over substance. George can get into places and he knows people — duh, he's a spy working for the British government. If he couldn't, this would be a really boring movie.
Soderbergh could have started the film with a meeting on a park bench and accomplished the same effect; instead, he tries to manifest intrigue, which results in an uninspired introduction to our main man. The "park bench" moment actually happens later on with Kathryn, in a clear nod to The Conversation, and it's a much more successful scene.
Nevertheless, Black Bag still contains some masterful writing and directing. A kinetically edited polygraph session with George and each of the four main suspects overflows with misdirection and cheeky dialogue. Soderbergh sets up multiple cameras to capture the blistering back and forth, including three lenses — which he never bothers to hide — pointed right at the interrogatees. Inspired instead of expository, the sequence is dynamic and frantic while also showing George's formidable skills.
Similarly, the aforementioned dinner party scene acts as the film's early centrepiece. Soderbergh places cameras in the corners of the dining room, turning it into a work of surveillance and establishing the film's sense of jovial, almost fetishistic paranoia. Increasingly, the film grows into something voyeuristic and uncomfortable, the camera physically getting closer and closer to the actors as the party progresses and the vitriol intensifies, right up until the scene ends with a punctuated act of gluttonous violence.
Although the film features a number of simple yet effective twists, some plot points come across as simultaneously overly complicated and derivative. Soderbergh and Koepp make the central mystery way more convoluted than it needs to be. It's basically "John lite-Carré."
Unsurprisingly, the film recalls the Cold War thrillers of the past, but its overly simplistic reading of Western influence on the Russian–Ukraine conflict (and vice-versa) renders its politics more laughable than laudable. Take the decision to name the dangerous computer program at the heart of the mystery Severus, after a Roman emperor whose assassination sparked a 50-year-long civil war; on the nose much?
And yet, by film's end, it becomes apparent that the central thesis cares less about how technology can specifically affect or influence politics and elections, and more about people and relationships in general, with the "spy" angle used to examine how people's actions and allegiances — or lack thereof — impact those around them.
As a film that interrogates both the lies we tell and the tech that helps us tell them, Black Bag often feels like Sex, Lies, and Videotape for the surveillance generation — or, more aptly, the social media generation. Unfortunately, it's nowhere near as good or effective. It undeservedly believes in its own self-worth and profundity while still relying on its A-list performers and director to bolster a banal and ultimately clunky script.
While it's not as gripping or as interesting as better films in the genre, Black Bag is entertaining enough, a sometimes fun, performance-heavy exercise in manipulative people manipulating manipulative people. At just over 90 minutes, it's a quick ride, although one you can definitely wait to take at home.