Black Bag – REVIEW

Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender in Black Bag


Earlier in the year, I mentioned that one of my biggest disappointments of the year so far is Presence, a horror movie from the perspective of a ghost haunting a house when a new family moves in. That movie has a lot of talent behind it, with Steven Soderbergh directing and David Koepp writing. While Soderbergh’s direction wasn’t the problem (it typically never is), Koepp’s writing was shockingly bad. That’s the guy who wrote Jurassic Park, Spider-Man, the first Mission: Impossible, and a good amount of Indiana Jones. While watching this, though, I was aware that they already had another collaboration locked and loaded in a few months: Black Bag, a sleek spy thriller led by Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett. It’s a completely different vibe from Presence, but not only is Black Bag leagues ahead of it: it’s probably the first great 2025 movie. He’s already got some great spy or spy-adjacent movies in him like the Ocean’s movies, and I’ve also heard great things about Out of Sight. Some of the best stuff I’ve seen from Soderbergh is actually an under-seen one of his, Haywire, especially how he films that movie’s few but brutal action pieces. Honestly, it’s basically the closest thing I can think of that’s an arthouse action movie. While Black Bag isn’t an action movie by any means, it replaces Haywire’s action with sexy British intelligence officers all around, flirting with each other while the seasoned vet of the bunch is tasked with investigating a list of possible traitors to the country, and one of the names on his list is his own wife. I appreciate just how short this is, clocking in at barely 90 minutes long. Although, that’s a hell of a double-edged sword for Black Bag. This could easily be a 6-8 episode miniseries on a streaming service, mainly because there’s enough substance here to possibly fill out a miniseries, but this cuts out all of the fat and cuts to the chase, making every scene have at least something important. Take one scene out, and it just doesn’t feel right. However, the characters here feel rich to the point where I was surprised when the movie came to a close. Again, it’s a double-edged sword when it comes to this, I’m not complaining, though. I would’ve gladly taken two hours with this story, but this is a very lean movie. Sometimes we need that.


Ryan’s Grade: A-