Clever Black Bag a Winning Game of Marital Spy-Versus-Spy Confusion
After successfully joining forces on Kimi and The Presence, director Steven Soderbergh and writer David Koepp reunite for a third time with Black Bag, a dazzling, character-driven spy-versus-spy drama headlined by Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett as a pair of seasoned British agents who also happen to be married. This is one of 2025’s best films.
He is George Woodhouse, a master at uncovering the impossible and a meticulous, seemingly emotionless counterespionage legend that no one can lie to. She is Kathryn St. Jean, a notoriously cunning field operative who is as respected in the intelligence community as she is feared. Together they are a power couple who few would want to purposefully mess with and both of whom also know better than to bring their work home with them.
But what happens when Kathryn is on a list of five potential moles buried deep with MI6 who has stolen a top-secret device to be sold to the highest bidder and George is tasked with figuring out who the individual is? He’ll invite all of the remaining suspects — psychologist Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris), department head Col. James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page), agent Teddy Smalls (Tom Burke), and surveillance satellite tech Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela) — over to the house for a home-cooked meal with him and his wife, that’s what.
Beginning with this dinner party (and the subsequent game George challenges them to play after they’ve eaten their fill) and with succeeding events taking place over the following week, Soderbergh and Koepp engage in a friskily deadly contest of who is lying to who and why. Will husband betray wife? Is Kathryn being framed? Is one or more of their four friends (who all happen to be fellow spies) working against the British government? Or is this simply a massive illusionary exercise of espionage nonsense dreamt up by their boss, Arthur Stieglitz (Pierce Brosnan), to remind them that trust (and by extension love) in their line of work is a dangerous luxury none can afford?
In some ways reminiscent of Soderbergh’s Haywire, complete with another energetically jazzy score composed by frequent collaborator David Holmes, and in others a spiritual sequel to any one of author John le Carré’s George Smiley novels like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy or The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, this whole thing is a delicately lithe balancing act where truth and fiction are harmoniously at war. Mostly centered on George and his actions, while it’s never really in doubt that he’ll figure out what is going on, it’s still a giant mystery as to what he is going to do as he inches closer to uncovering the identity of the mole. The fun is in that not knowing.
Fassbender is marvelous. His performance is a series of head ticks, sly shoulder permutations, sideways glances, and minutely trembling lips. George’s anger becomes increasingly palpable as he realizes he is being toyed with from multiple angles. But he can’t show it, can’t let others see what is happening. Fassbender balances this almost robotic stoicism with an internal gravitas that’s startling, and it’s only a matter of time before this master tactician lives up to his reputation as a ruthless crusader for the truth and unleashes unimaginable pain upon those who have wronged him — and by extension his country — the most.
Blanchett is every bit his equal. No surprise there, but even in her limited screen time the Oscar-winning actor gives Kathryn a magnetic multidimensionality that held me spellbound. Blanchett dances around the screen with pugnaciously puckish urgency. She’s a seductive siren who does not appreciate being made a fool of, and the rise of a bemusedly annoyed eyebrow is all it takes to let the viewer know hell is about to bust loose with lethal precision.
The remaining ensemble is similarly excellent, especially the relatively unknown Abela. There is great joy hiding behind her eyes, almost as if Dubose is having the time of her life being in the same room as her more emotionally cloistered workmates. Her young agent is like the smartest kid at a secluded prep school who believes they’ll remain the big fish in whichever pond she swims within. That means when the sharks arrive, her shock at being only a tiny, insignificant meal to be greedily devoured is only dwarfed by her voracious awe at the might and majesty of her new adversaries. Dubose brings all of this and more to effervescent life with dexterous glee.
The mystery builds to a wildly perverse yet suitably sincere conclusion that knocked my socks off. However, to say more than that would spoil all of the fun. Black Bag is a dinner party game of seduction, revelation, and retribution better played without knowing all the rules beforehand. Learning those as one goes along is almost more enjoyable than laying down the winning hand and stepping up from the table victorious at the end of the night would be. Almost.
Film Rating: 4 (out of 4)
