Take 10: Black Bag

Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett lead a strong cast in a cerebral spy thriller that, which is a tight hour and thirty-three minutes. Because it is so lean, it doesn’t have time to waste and makes use of every minute of its run time. The pace is brisk, almost too brisk and if you blink (like I may have) you might miss something and have to play catch up until the end.

George (Fassbender) is not only a highly-capable member in his intelligence agency has a penchant for cooking and hosting along with is equally capable wife, Kathryn (Blanchett). We are introduced to the majority of the remaining cast, Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke), his young date who works in survellience, Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela), Colonel James Stokes (Rege-Jean Page) , and his girlfriend, Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomi’s Harris). A game is proposed that serves to flesh out the characters and their fraught relationships as well as place suspicion on everyone by revealing something messed up with all of them. There is plenty to dislike about just about all of them. The only main player not in attendance is Arthur Stieglitz (Pierce Bronson) who comes with is own baggage. With the stage set, we get right to it.

I am not familiar with a lot of Steven Soderbergh’s films but from what I gather, it’s pretty par for his course. It’s slick. It’s smart. It’s also a little hard to follow in places, but it’s entertaining. Although the action is minimal, he leaves you on edge the entire time. Towards the end, there is an exposition scene that is well-done, but where it is meant to clear up motivation and make sense of everything that has led to the end, it left me scratching my head. This film is British. Very British. In the beginning, I found myself wishing there were captions to simply keep up with the quickly spoken dialogue so I felt a little behind the eight ball from jump. This one would probably benefit from a rewatch.

Overall, I liked it. The characters are definitely the strongest part of the movie. The larger outside ramifications for the world at large are very secondary. I do feel as though the movie was a tad too proud of how smart it was. But at least it did it with style and flair.

My score 8

So now that the cat is out of the black bag, tell me what YOU thought and I’ll see you next week. I think I know what I am seeing next but that would be telling…