Black Bag

Grade: B-

Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven remake wasn’t the most important or meaningful movie in the world, but it was so much fun. It made my top ten list for 2001. I got the feeling it was made as a lark. Black Bag has the same vibe. It’s not about what it’s about so much as an opportunity to enjoy these actors and crew participating in this exercise in style together. Soderbergh has been prolific; he and screenwriter David Koepp already had a film out earlier this year (Presence). They couldn’t be more different.

Black Bag stars Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender as a married couple. They are spies, but don’t work together, to their knowledge. The title phrase is what they say to one another if the conversations at home about work-related stuff crosses a line into something they’re not allowed to talk about. A top-secret software program code has been leaked, and Fassbender has been given a list of five suspects who could have done it. Blanchett is on that short list. They are acquaintances with the others, and invite them over for one of those Clue-style dinner parties. The plot’s details spin out of control and get increasingly more complicated. If you can’t understand everything (or choose not to), it’s basically all about who’s zooming who, as the expression goes.

The ensemble has a great time with the conniving, monologuing, and scenery-chewing. Blanchett specializes in playing characters who are cryptic and always concealing something, which makes her absolutely perfect for the mystery/spy genre. I continue to be impressed by how Fassbender utilizes every tool to make his characters different from each other. He takes advantage of changing his voice, look, physicality – you name it. Ably rounding out the cast in the supporting roles is the likes of Tom Burke (Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, The Wonder, Living, Mank), Marisa Abela (Amy Winehouse from Back to Black), Naomie Harris (Moonlight), Pierce Brosnan, and yet another Skarsgård (Gustaf), who is yet another actor I’m learning was in Oppenheimer.

Eventually, I came to realize that I didn’t care so much about the nuts and bolts of the plot. The best reason to see Black Bag is for the direction and the acting. What happens and why mattered less and less to me. At a lean hour and a half, it’s not long enough to outstay its welcome, and it ends when it should. I almost want to tell you not to worry about a plot summary, on IMDb or wherever. Just enjoy the presentation, and “black bag” yourself from anything else.

Grade: B-