Steven Soderbergh and David Koepp are two of cinema’s good guys. The former, a journeyman of a director who’s been drawn to a myriad of subjects and styles, all of them bearing the common denominator of inventiveness. The latter, screenwriting royalty who many of us have to thank for recent yet foundational genre and blockbuster work (Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man? Spielberg’s Jurassic Park? That was him).
They’ve collaborated more than once and have embodied cinematic creativity in a studio system that seems to tolerate less and less of that as time goes on. Their latest joint venture is Black Bag, a spy thriller that contains one (1) explosion throughout its 93 minute runtime, and is all the better for it — better than most every spy thriller we’ve seen in the last five years, and probably those we’ll see in the next five as well.
Rightly demanding the viewers’ full attention, Black Bag is armed to the gums with a peak-power cast led by Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett — two tips of a dangerously witty script, full of passionate venom and a head-spinning surplus of agency jargon. It’s an energetic puzzle box of a ride, and at the center is a stoic emotional core that keeps things ticking along.
Black Bag stars Fassbender as George, an intelligence agent who gets tipped off about five suspects in a treasonous plot that could claim countless civilian lives. One of these five suspects — all of them colleagues of George’s — is the guilty party, and one of them also happens to be his wife Kathryn (Blanchett). Torn between his devotion to his country and his uncompromising love for his wife, George begins a dangerous game of chess wherein he just might be one of the pieces.
Now, for those of you familiar with the standards that Soderbergh and Koepp tend to set for themselves, you already know that the above synopsis isn’t even close to the truth of Black Bag‘s plot. Just as well, because the plot’s ins and outs aren’t hoops that the audience is expected to jump through, as the remarks, retorts, hard logistical info, and subtextual probes rattled off by the characters are delivered with a cold (and even alienating) efficiency.
Half the battle of watching Black Bag is keeping up with all the charismatic syllables in play (made more challenging with the varying thickness of the accents here), and in the film’s general refusal to slow down, viewers may worry that they’re missing too much of the plot to be well and truly dialed in. But don’t worry — as long as you can keep track of who’s hostile towards who (and who isn’t), you can drink in the sharp dialogue like a frothy milkshake with rainbow sprinkles instead of a wine that needs its notes acknowledged. You’re there as an observer, not an equal, of these characters.
Soderbergh — director and cinematographer here — calls further attention to this with his framing. Whenever the characters are firing off verbal entertainment, our view is positioned like a hidden camera, wide enough to capture all the subjects involved in the exchange, and high enough to reinforce the viewer as a privileged observer. You feel sneaky watching all of this play out, but also confident, as though you’re not supposed to be there, but aren’t terribly intimidated by the thought of getting found out.
It’s when the characters enter truly dangerous territory within their conversations that Soderbergh’s camera begins to close in. The higher the emotions — hidden and otherwise — the more isolated these characters become in the frame, and the more intimate we become with their faces and bodies. In this way, the viewer gets caught in the middle of the danger, either having no escape from the interrogator or being forced to scrutinize whoever’s being interrogated.
The subjects, of course, need to be worth capturing, and I already told you that they’re played by Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender, so that takes care of that.
But seriously, the duo’s emotional subtleties are quietly tremendous. Filling the shoes of the other four main characters are Naomie Harris, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, and Regé-Jean Page (who seemed to go missing for a bit, but is back here in as fine a form as ever). This quartet consistently hit their demanding marks, but Fassbender and Blanchett stand out when they combine their cold exteriors with their very full, beating hearts.
When Fassbender’s George shows fear, he doesn’t get overwhelmed but instead thinks lucidly at a new twin-turbine pace. When he’s disappointed, the other men in the room seem miniscule. When Blanchett’s Kathryn is angry, she ascends titanically instead of exploding erratically. When she turns to George and says “I love you,” she means it, and she means it with a disarming sincerity that somehow doesn’t betray any vulnerability. Her love for him — like his love for her — is not a weakness, but a superpower.
And really, is that not the most refreshing inversion of any spy thriller genre trope at any point ever? In any given spy thriller or adjacent genre, how often are a character’s loved ones used by their enemies to force them into action, if not by direct kidnapping, then putting them unavoidably in harm’s way? Indeed, love tends to be leveraged as a weakness in these movies, and if there’s anything the world doesn’t need right now (or ever), it’s the notion that love is a weakness.
Black Bag challenges this notion — in this film, love is enabling, powerful, and is precisely why George and Kathryn can operate as diligently, proficiently, and dangerously as they do. Love is the great choice that we all have the privilege of making in this life, and these two — enabled further by Koepp’s script and Soderbergh’s camera —make it with style to spare.
For the sake of brevity and secrecy, I’ll leave the emotional core for you to discover. All I’ll say is to pay extra-close attention to what George utters to his conversation partner before walking away from him in the opening scene. Then, sit back and bear witness to 2025’s current film to beat.
Published: Mar 14, 2025 09:17 am