Hello, Steven. Again.
For those just tuning in, director Steven Soderbergh and writer David Koepp delivered a movie called Presence a couple months ago. It was awesome and underappreciated and you should totally see it if you haven’t already. And now we have Black Bag, a film from the same writer/director combo.
Granted, Presence was a shoestring horror-suspense picture with a minimal cast and a plot that took place entirely within a single house. By contrast, Black Bag is a star-studded international spy caper. That cavernous difference in scope could certainly explain how Soderbergh/Koepp were somehow able to release two films back-to-back in such quick succession. And of course we can’t forget that Soderbergh is well-practiced at operating in secrecy. Even so, releasing two incredibly good movies in such a short time frame would be a titanic accomplishment for any filmmaker. So, how did Soderbergh/Koepp do this time?
Michael Fassbender stars as George Wodehouse, an agent with some unnamed covert organization in London. Long story short, George has been informed of a mole in the organization, and the list of possible suspects has been narrowed down to five. So now he has one week to find out who the mole is, or millions of innocents die.
It’s a straightforward premise for a bit of suspenseful skullduggery, but there’s a wrinkle: Four of the five suspects are comprised of two couples. And the fifth one is George’s wife.
- Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett) is George’s loving wife. She’s also implied to be a senior official in the organization, actively gunning for the top job currently held by Arthur Stieglitz (Pierce Brosnan).
- Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela), a satellite imagery specialist with a highly promiscuous reputation.
- Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke), is Clarissa’s boyfriend, a boorish drunken womanizer.
- Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris) is the psychologist providing in-house mental health services for the industry’s agents.
- Col. James Stokes (Rege-Jean Page) is Zoe’s boyfriend, an ambitious no-nonsense agent.
What we’ve got here are six people who could only seek intimate partnerships within the international intelligence community because no civilian on the outside could understand or deal with all the stresses of this particular job. Though of course workplace romances come with their own particular pitfalls and conflicts of interest. In this particular workplace, that means potentially making a choice between loyalty to the nation and loyalty to one’s life partner.
It’s frequently and commonly understood that trust and transparency are the foundation for any healthy relationship. How exactly does that work between two people who deal in heavily classified matters of national security? How can anyone tell if someone’s out protecting the free world or sneaking out for an affair? And getting back to the premise, what if one suspects the other of being a traitor?
It all adds up to a fascinating look at the flawed, fallible, human nature of espionage work. Contrary to the perfect ideal, human beings (with very few exceptions) are not sexless or impartial or obsessively loyal to a singular cause. People need companionship, which naturally leads to romantic entanglements, which can unfortunately make people easily manipulated into doing something stupid. Hell, even people without romantic or sexual attachments can get baited into terrible mistakes through ambition or patriotism or some other dumb reason.
With all of that said, attachment does come with a significant upside: Teamwork. If there are two people who dearly love and trust each other, know each other inside and out, they’re completely on the same page, and they’re both impeccably good at what they do, they can accomplish anything together.
Michael Fassbender is playing well within his wheelhouse here, playing a stone-cold badass like only he could. And of course Cate Blanchett has the “mercurial seductress” act down solid. Rege-Jean Page is always great fun to watch, Naomie Harris plays well to her strengths, Tom Burke plays a wonderful heel, and Marisa Abela holds her own remarkably well. It speaks volumes that the weakest link in the cast is Pierce Brosnan, who sleepwalks through what little screen time he got.
With all of that said, it bears mentioning that this movie is much more “suspense” than “thriller”. If you want fight scenes and shootouts and car chases to go with your spy thriller, you’re stuck waiting until Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning comes out in a couple months. This film is much more focused on the skullduggery, sifting through the lies and secrets and double-crosses to figure out the grand overarching plan and find the traitor.
By those standards, I had a good time with Black Bag. The cast is solid, the plot is engaging, the camerawork and editing keep up the pace in creative ways. Granted, the film takes a bit more of an attention span than your average Bond film, but I appreciate how there’s room in the spy thriller genre for something more personal and intellectual. And anyway, it’s not like a 90-minute film loaded with pretty actors is all that grating on the patience.
If you want something funnier or more action-packed, go see Novocaine. If you want something deeper and more intriguing, check this one out.