With their recent trilogy of films arriving in fairly rapid succession — 2022’s Kimi, this past January’s Presence, and their latest, Black Bag — it almost feels like director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter David Koepp are making up for lost time. They might as well be, given that the duo appear to be two of the few remaining A-list filmmakers who have a particular interest in making entertainment for adults. You know, the type of genre pictures that used to be considered populist entertainment before the geek/superhero industrial complex took over. It was also before the bean counters decided that most of the halfway intelligent movies should be anonymously dumped onto streaming services, perhaps to be discovered at an algorithm’s whim.
To say that Black Bag is a throwback to a time when thrillers for adults reigned supreme would be doing the film a disservice. Steven Soderbergh and David Koepp aren’t acting as nostalgic stylists or referential fanboys here. Nonetheless, Black Bag is a stellar example of a growing trend in Hollywood: a theatrical feature that is absolutely modern while also honoring the spirit of the cinema classics of yesteryear, and the 1970s in particular.
Steven Soderbergh‘s Black Bag is a tried-and-true espionage thriller, a genre that almost guarantees excitement, ambiguity, mystery, and slight-of-hand. All of these elements are alive and well in the film, yet Soderbergh, Koepp, and the ensemble cast find new ways to exploit and enhance them. Koepp cleverly kicks off the story as simply as possible: British intelligence agent George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) is told by an informant (Gustaf Skarsgård) that there is a traitor within the agency he works for, the National Cyber Security Centre. Apparently, this traitor is somehow going to cause a top-secret device, code-named Severus, to fall into enemy hands, which will precipitate the deaths of thousands of innocent people.
On the short list of potential traitors George is given is his own beloved wife, fellow agent Kathryn Woodhouse (Cate Blanchett). Woodhouse, a man whose entire religion boils down to his mantra of “I don’t like liars,” must now sniff out the traitor in his midst: his wife, agency analyst Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris), Colonel James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page), satellite operator Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela), analyst Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke), or some combination of the above.
From there, Black Bag becomes a tense, taut spy thriller — one that includes a death here and an explosion there, of course, but primarily revolves around an ensemble of actors attempting to suss each other out in various ways. Soderbergh and Koepp take the opportunity to continue to mess around with form and plot structure as they did in Kimi and Presence. This time, though, they emphasize theatricality, with Black Bag bookended by extended dinner party scenes in which the main characters reveal as much as they conceal.
As expected, Steven Soderbergh never simply sits back and lets his cast take the reins, as he (acting as his own cinematographer again) composes shots that enhance the paranoia and tension, making use of fuzzy, glaring light sources in the way director Alan J. Pakula made use of shadows in Klute (1971) and All the President’s Men (1976). Those two paranoia classics are far from the only films obliquely referenced in Black Bag; the score (by Soderbergh veteran David Holmes) recalls Quincy Jones’ work on Sidney Lumet’s The Deadly Affair (1967). There’s more than a bit of the great UK author John le Carré in the movie’s DNA, too.
Woodhouse’s large horn-rimmed glasses seem to harken to Michael Caine’s eyewear in the 1965 British spy flick The Ipcress File, as well. Above all else, though, is writer David Koepp’s sterling gem of a screenplay, which echoes the byzantine chilliness of his work on the very first Mission: Impossible movie. You know, the one directed by Brian De Palma, which had the least death-defying stunts and the most misanthropic outlook on the business of spies. Koepp returns to some of the themes he began in that film with Black Bag, namely the idea of how it’s possible to live and maintain any sort of relationships when you’re in a constant state of deception.
This theme of trying to maintain any kind of normalcy while working in the profession of deception is actually something that Marisa Abela’s satellite operator, Clarissa, articulates at one point: “When you can lie about everything, when you can deny everything, how do you tell the truth about anything?” George Woodhouse seems to have an answer in the movie’s very first scene, stating that “Some things are better swept under the rug.”
These are evergreen ethical questions, not just for intelligence operatives but for everyone maintaining a life in an age of constant surveillance. After all, whether we average citizens are being surveilled or not, we’re all certainly putting versions of ourselves out in public daily. This allows Steven Soderbergh the scamp to play around with our emotions as much as the characters are playing guessing games with each other.
There’s a beautiful perversity about how ambiguous Cate Blanchett is and how cold Michael Fassbender is in the film (the latter possibly behaving even more chilly than as David, the sociopathic android in Alien: Covenant). However, the couple is shown to have a genuinely loving relationship. Black Bag‘s perpetual theme of the confessional is almost obscenely on display throughout its entire runtime. Yet, the script is constantly subverting it simply because these characters are all desperately trying not to give themselves away. Perhaps Soderbergh and Koepp are saying that the only ethical way of living in such a state of constant falsehood is through actions, not words.
Whatever your takeaway is regarding the morality of the film, there’s no denying that it’s a joy to watch unfold. In a cinematic landscape (for mainstream theatrical releases, anyway) that is getting increasingly desperate to manufacture audience response moments, there are several in Black Bag that happen so deftly and naturally that it’s like a breath of fresh air. That’s because David Koepp and Steven Soderbergh have absolutely hit the sweet spot between intelligent and accessible; Black Bag is incredibly cunning and clever, yet not so obtuse that audiences will be left confused. It’s an old-fashioned damn good time at the movies.
Black Bag is an instant classic that is made with such a high degree of craft that it feels unique amongst the still-popular spy genre. Screenwriter William Goldman, who wrote ‘70s paranoia gems Marathon Man (1976) and the previously mentioned All the President’s Men, was famous for saying that in Hollywood, “Nobody knows anything.” That pithy, world-weary phrase easily sums up the characters and narrative themes of Black Bag.
Black Bag hits theaters on March 14!
Release Date: March 14, 2025.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh.
Written by David Koepp.
Produced by Casey Silver, Gregory Jacobs, Corey Bayes, & Andrew Riach.
Executive Producer: David Koepp.
Main Cast: Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page, & Pierce Brosnan.
Cinematographer: Steven Soderbergh.
Composer: David Holmes.
Production Company: Casey Silver Productions.
Distributor: Focus Features.
Runtime: 94 minutes.
Rated R.
