BLACK BAG : Tuesday 18th March 2025

I saw the M Rated 'BLACK BAG' this week, and this American spy thriller film is Directed, photographed and Edited by Steven Soderbergh, whose prior feature film making credits take in his debut in 1989 with 'Sex, Lies, and Videotape' which he would follow up with numerous others, including 'Out of Sight' in 1998, 'Erin Brockovich' and 'Traffic' both in 2000, 'Ocean's Eleven', 'Ocean's Twelve' and 'Ocean's Thirteen' in 2001, 2004 and 2007 respectively, 'Contagion' in 2011, 'Magic Mike' in 2012, 'Side Effects' in 2013, 'Logan Lucky' in 2017, 'Unsane' in 2018, and 'Presence' most recently released earlier this year. This film was released in the US last week too, has generated universal critical acclaim, and has so far grossed US$15M from a production budget of about US$55M.

Here British intelligence officer George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) is given one week by his superior, Meacham (Gustaf Skarsgard), to investigate the leak of a top-secret software programme code-named Severus. One of five suspects is his wife, Kathryn (Cate Blanchett), also an intelligence officer. He invites the other four suspects, who are also fellow spies, over for dinner on Saturday evening. The four suspects are satellite imagery specialist Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela), her boyfriend Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke), agency psychiatrist Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris) and Zoe's boyfriend Col. James Stokes (Rege-Jean Page). At dinner, George drugs their food, but beforehand tells Kathryn not to eat a certain dish, to lower their inhibitions and reveals that Freddie has been cheating on Clarissa, who upon hearing this revelation promptly impales Freddie's hand with a steak knife to the table.  

The next evening while Meacham enjoys a peaceful Scotch on the balcony of his apartment, he suddenly grabs at his chest and keels over, dead from an apparent heart attack. George becomes suspicious of Kathryn after she denies having seen a certain film, although he found a cinema ticket stub in her bathroom garbage bin. The next day he covertly enters her office, logs into her computer diary and learns she will be traveling to Zurich later in the week, on a 'black bag' mission. He persuades Clarissa to redirect a spy satellite for three minutes and twenty seconds and watches Kathryn meet with a Russian operative in real time in a city square in Zurich, Switzerland. 

Meanwhile, James informs George that Kathryn has access to a Zurich bank account containing GB£7M in misdirected and unexplained funds. In a tense psychiatric session, Zoe asks if Kathryn prioritises her career or her husband. In a subsequent session, Zoe breaks up with James. Upon returning from Zurich late at night, Freddie waits for Kathryn outside their house and informs her that George suspects her. Kathryn says that she needs the night to consider her options and next steps. 

We learn that during the three+ minutes George redirected the satellite to watch Kathryn's meeting in Zurich, another Russian operative disappeared from a Liechtenstein safehouse with a copy of the Severus programme, and is now making his way to Eastern Europe to use it to cause a nuclear meltdown. Kathryn uses Clarissa to track the Russian. She suspects that their boss, Arthur Stieglitz (Pierce Brosnan), deliberately allowed Severus to leak in order to cause a nuclear meltdown in order to disrupt the government, even though it could potentially kill thousands of innocent lives.

She leaks the Russian's location to a CIA contact, resulting in a drone strike on a car in Poland, killing both Russians. George puts all suspects except his wife Kathryn through a polygraph test to determine when they first learned about Severus. In bed that night, the husband and wife compare notes and come to the realisation that they are being set up.

George and Kathryn invite the other four suspects to a second dinner party, at which no food or drink is served, but instead Kathryn places a gun on the table, while George says they will play a game. He reveals several secrets - that Freddie and Zoe had an affair, and that Zoe learned of the Severus programme from James but attempted to stop its dissemination due to her Catholic faith. George states that there were two plots - the first by Stieglitz and James to leak Severus and cause a nuclear meltdown, and the second by Zoe and Freddie to use Kathryn to stop it. James grabs the gun, confesses to plotting with Stieglitz and killing Meacham, and attempts to shoot George, but the gun was loaded with blanks. Kathryn pulls out another gun and shoots and kills James with a bullet to the head. The next day George dumps James' body in a pond, where he goes to fish in peace and quiet, while the others return to work. Kathryn informs Stieglitz that his plot failed and suggests he remove himself from the picture, as she has her eyes on his role. Later that night as Kathryn and George reaffirm their love for each other, they realise that the Zurich bank account containing the GB£7M remains untouched and could potentially still be theirs.

With 'Black Bag' Director Steven Soderbergh has crafted an intelligent, mature and engaging spy thriller that pays tribute to the spy classics of yesteryear. This film has both style and substance, and Writer David Koepp will keep you guessing right up until end, and with on point performances from Blanchett and Fasbender, as well as the other principle cast, this all adds up to a very well paced film that doesn't outstay its welcome at a brisk and concise 93 minute run time. 

'Black Bag' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-