BLACK BAG - Mark Reviews Movies

Black Bag, Focus Features

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 13, 2025

One of the early scenes of Black Bag takes the idea of spy games quite literally, as a group of colleagues in the intelligence service attend a dinner party hosted by one of their own. Once the meal is complete, it's time for them all to play a little game, says the host, who has secretly laced one dish with a sort of truth serum.

At this point in director Steven Soderbergh's film, we're pretty much in the filmmaker and screenwriter David Koepp's hands. The premise of the story is simplicity itself, as George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender, as cooly restrained as can be), the master spy and party host, has learned from his superior that there's a traitor in their midst.

Some devious device has gone missing from MI6 and is likely on its way to the black market, and it's up to George to figure out which one of the five names on the boss' list is the thief and betrayer. By the way, adding to the dilemma is the fact that one of those names is George's wife Kathryn St. Jeans (Cate Blanchett), whom he loves dearly and whom he knows for sure is as good a spy as he is—if not better.

From there, Koepp's screenplay proceeds to give us scene after scene of smart and knowing characters. They try, fail, or maybe only pretend to fail to convince each other that they know or don't know one thing or another, that someone else could be the clandestine villain, or that whatever George thinks he knows or suspects here is all just a big, unfortunate misunderstanding. The plot itself often feels like a mess, but it obviously isn't. There is, after all, only one thing here that matters: the identity of the traitor. Everything until that revelation is, really, all a game.

The confusion is intentional here. These characters are very, very good at knowing what they know, determining how to figure out what other people know, and creating layers upon layers of deception, bluffs, and double bluffs.

It's a marvel any of them can manage to dress themselves in their designer outfits, for all of the lies and real or false information they have to keep track of every minute of every day, but the clothes, it seems, come with the territory, too. Without them, we might see these characters as the likely sociopaths some of they are, instead of admiring how suave they look and cunning they behave while looking colleagues, friends, and lovers in the eyes while lying through their own teeth.

At a certain point, it might be better to give up trying to follow the trails of deceit laid out by George and certainly set by at least one of the other five main characters in this narrative. That extended dinner party scene, which is the fourth one or so in a story that is quite succinct for all the forms of intrigue it produces, lets us know everything we need to know about the characters—or, at least, what those characters want others to know about them—and their relationships. In terms of both revealing those character details and raising plenty of suspicion about each suspect, the scene is so cleverly devised that we're inclined to trust that Koepp isn't going to take us down unnecessary tangents and, more importantly, isn't going to cheat.

With that in mind, we can simply appreciate the important stuff here: those characters, the games they play, and the compelling atmosphere of uncertainty and the entrancing attitude of professional cool Soderbergh creates with this tale. The film may only be an exercise in boiling down a spy thriller to its core elements, but with these filmmakers and this cast doing the workout, it's better than it probably has any right to be.

The other suspects, by the way, are Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke), James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page), Zoe Vaughn (Naomie Harris), and Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela). Freddie, a field operative like George and Kathryn, and Clarissa, who works in the satellite surveillance department of the intelligence agency, have been dating for about a year. After dinner, George does a fine job winding both of them up about Freddie's long-standing habit of sleeping around, which also serves as way to show how much George, who dramatically called out his own father's extramarital affairs some years ago, cannot stand liars.

James, another agent, and Zoe, the company psychiatrist, have been carrying on a not-so-secret affair, as well, and even though everyone at the table more or less determines that George is up to something with his little game, they all do admire how he and Kathryn have kept their marriage alive, betrayal-free, and on the level, despite their professional inclinations. Then again, Kathryn's name is on the list of possible traitors, which becomes even more pressing when the boss dies of a suspicious heart attack, leaving George at the mercy of higher-up Arthur Steiglitz (Pierce Brosnan, in a cheeky bit of casting), who doesn't know what George does know.

The rest of the story, set within the main couple's lavish home and agency office spaces and some public place or eerily private getaway locations, mostly comes down to dialogue. Black Bag revels in these characters talking—about themselves and each other and trying to hide certain things, for motives that could be either sinister or relatively innocent—and not action. It's all an entertaining game, played with intelligence, humor, and obvious craft—not only by the characters on screen, but also by the filmmakers.

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