“I watch her, and I assume she watches me.”
Even though Black Bag represents the third collaboration between director Stephen Soderbergh and screenwriter David Koepp, it’s the one that feels most like something you would expect from such a pairing. The two can boast resumes as varied as they get in their respective lanes. Koepp can count Death Becomes Her, Jurassic Park, and Mission: Impossible among some of his most popular works, while plenty of Soderbergh’s films, including Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Erin Brockovich, and Traffic are considered true classics. Black Bag doesn’t come close to reaching the heights of any of these films, but it does show that, despite more hits than they can count, Koepp and Soderbergh are still present and remain artists who continue to relish the art of entertaining storytelling. This is certainly true with their latest collaboration, which is the kind of playful, late-winter gem that’s always a joy to discover.
In Black Bag, married couple Kathryn (Cate Blanchette) and George (Michael Fassbender) enjoy a spark-filled marriage and thriving careers as members of British Intelligence. The secret to their union is that neither one pries into the other’s work, responding with the term “black bag” whenever one of them gives the other a question they’re not allowed to answer. However, when George is tasked with spying on Kathryn, who may be committing traitorous acts, it makes him question his loyalty to both his marriage and his career.
For anyone who loves a throwback, Black Bag is littered with them. The movie has the kind of slickness found in the capers of classic cinema, some truly lush cinematography courtesy of Soderbergh, and a score from David Holmes that feels just this side of mischievous. Best of all is the mesmerizing rapport between the two leads. Their back-and-forth represents some of the best chemistry of the year, despite it being only March. Kathryn’s slickness and George’s continuous enchantment of her go a long way toward making the movie one of the deceptively hottest experiences of 2025 so far. There’s a decent enough comment within Black Bag about relationships within the spy world. We see that Kathryn and George’s marriage works, yet we’re also made well aware that this is because of the conditions they’ve made for each other and the understanding that exists between them. Yes, every relationship must face conditions and compromises if it wants to last, but Black Bag shows what concessions are necessary when two people belong to a world that requires just as much from them as their own marriage does.
Besides the romance (which is never anything less than steamy when it comes to the central couple), Black Bag is the kind of genre blend that most studios are just too afraid to make anymore. While most films get points marked off for daring to mix up tones and styles to tell their story as they see fit, this movie happily has no such worries as it shows itself to be an espionage tale, a dark comedy, and a whodunnit, sometimes all at once. Even the film’s architecture doesn’t follow the standard blueprint, beginning with a dinner party at the couple’s home where they have invited name fellow spies Freddie (Tom Burke), Clarissa (Marisa Abela), James (Rege-Jean Page), and Zoe (Naomi Harris) to their home for dinner where a meal that has been laced with a drug used to sniff out deceivers is served. The extended sequence is the best in the film as it brilliantly sets up the thrilling ride we’re about to embark on, complete with an assortment of colorful suspects, plenty of twists, and, eventually, even Pierce Brosnan in a supporting role that sees him having more fun than he’s had in some time.
Black Bag gives some great actors the chance to have some fun with a collection of side characters, none of whom are what they seem. Brosnan, Burke, Abela, Page, and Harris all prove a natural fit for Soderberg’s world and give real life to the motley group of suspects, with each actor making them their own. That being said, nothing can beat the chemistry shared by the two leads. Blanchett carries herself with such seductive confidence that suggests she’s always one step ahead of everyone in the room. Meanwhile, Fassbender credibly portrays a Hitchcockian leading man with his quiet desperation to get to the bottom of who is behind it all.
Apart from all of its attributes, the aspect of Black Bag that deserves the most applause is its use of the MacGuffin. Coined by Alfred Hitchcock back in the day, the MacGuffin is a storytelling device that the famed director described as: “The thing that the bad guys are after, but that the audience doesn’t care about.” Black Bag manages to use its MacGuffin skillfully, giving the audience just enough information for us to know that the item that everyone going on about is a big deal, but not so much information that we have to invest more time with it than we’d prefer. In an era where some films are criticized for over explaining or not explaining enough, Black Bag finds the perfect middle ground, showing that the storytelling device made famous so many years ago is still alive and well, not to mention just as fun as ever.
