Review: Steven Soderbergh’s Sleek Spy Romance ‘Black Bag’ Drops On Blu-ray
by David Lewis
Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett are movie stars who both seem born to play sexy spies on the big screen, and director Steven Soderbergh takes advantage of that fact in his sleek, stylish romance-espionage thriller Black Bag, newly available on Blu-ray from Sony Home Entertainment.
Fassbender and Blanchett play a pair of attractive married UK spies, George and Kathryn Woodhouse, who end up involved in an increasingly elaborate game of suspicion when one of their coworkers is accused of leaking a top secret virus program called Severus. George is picked by his supervisor (Gustaf Skarsgård) to investigate five internal leads — one of whom is Kathryn. Without giving anything away, the couple go through various phases of suspicion and doubt, with George weighing the value of his marriage against his loyalty to his country. Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Regé-Jean Page, and Naomie Harris play the other suspects, all of whom have their own reasons for not trusting the Woodhouses. Pierce Brosnan also supports as a mid-level spymaster with a prosthetic nose for some reason.
The movie begins and ends with group dinners at the Woodhouse home, where personal grievances, twists, and red herrings are revealed in a structure worthy of Agatha Christie — although the film is groping more towards John le Carré territory. As stylish as it all is, Black Bag is rather dry. The twists are dropped so matter-of-factly that they barely register, as if acknowledging their predictability. But the cast is aces, especially Abela, and Soderbergh really knows how to frame London and fancy home decor to maximum effect. It’s also fun to see former 007 Brosnan and former Miss Moneypenney Harris take on different roles in the world of Brit espionage.
Black Bag is cut from a similar cloth to a lot of Soderbergh’s most recent films — e.g., Let Them All Talk, No Sudden Move, The Laundromat — which all offer smart, original ideas and feature all-star casts, but have a curious casualness to them. They’re stylish, well-performed, and are distinctly Soderbergh-ian, but also distinctly low energy. Soderbergh shoots his films himself (under a pseudonym) and even operates the camera, so the films all sort of look alike as well. He’s always been prolific — remember when he directed both Erin Brockovich and Traffic in 2000, with Ocean’s 11 following just six months later? But his newer films may make more of an impact if he slowed down and maybe worked with an external director of photography.
The Blu-rays’s extra features are welcome but not revelatory. There’s about six minutes of deleted material that’s mostly forgettable, but they do reveal the fate of supporting player Anna (Kae Alexander).
A short featurette highlights the film’s glamour — from costumes, hair, and makeup to the East London settings and impressive built sets, including the Woodhouse’ house and garage.
The ten-minute featurette The Company of Talent is mostly just the cast praising the script and gushing over other cast members. They also praise Soderbergh’s ease and confidence on set. We’re told that the speed at which he works is helped by the fact he edits in his head as he shoots. Brosnan calls him “surgically, brilliantly perfect.”
