Black Bag, Steven Soderbergh's slick, stylish and endlessly entertaining new film, is equal parts spy thriller and marriage drama distilled into a taut 90-minuter.
Marking the prolific American director’s third collaboration with screenwriter David Koepp after Kimi (2022) and Presence (2024), it's a wordy, witty and expertly-paced film with a steely elegance matched by its leading stars.
Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett head up the impressive ensemble cast as George Woodhouse and Kathryn St. Jean, a very-much-in-love married couple who are both esteemed agents at Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).
A colleague assigns George to uncover a mole within the organisation who has let a top-secret device called Severus fall into the wrong hands, giving him a list with five names who may be responsible.
Watch: We speak to Michael Fassbender and Marisa Abela about Black Bag
Naturally, Kathryn’s name is on that list, and George is put in the unenviable position of having to reconcile his unwavering loyalty to his wife and his country.
His solution? To organise a dinner party, with a main course laced with truth serum, at their sleek London townhouse with all suspects present - surveillance expert Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela), loose cannon Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke), bureau psychologist Zoe Vaughn (Naomie Harris) and Colonel James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page).
Meanwhile, former James Bond star Pierce Brosnan has a smaller but no-less memorable role as the volatile head of the agency, Arthur Steiglitz.
While the twists and turns of the plot keep you guessing throughout, and Soderbergh’s ruthlessly efficient editing means not a second of the 93-minute running time is wasted, what elevates Black Bag is the exploration of shifting allegiances and complicated interpersonal relationships between the colleagues and lovers. Fascinating stuff.
Black Bag is in cinemas now.
Read more: Michael Fassbender says Pierce Brosnan was 'quite scary' in Black Bag
Read more: Black Bag's Naomie Harris says Michael Fassbender can 'switch it on'
