Black Bag (dir. Steven Soderbergh)

by Jack Martin | Mar 14, 2025

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 94 mins

UK Distributor: Universal Pictures

UK Release Date: 14 March 2025

WHO’S IN BLACK BAG?

Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page, Pierce Brosnan

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Steven Soderbergh (director, cinematographer, editor), David Koepp (writer), Gregory Jacobs and Casey Silver (producers), David Holmes (composer)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A married spy couple (Blanchett and Fassbender) is put to the test…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON BLACK BAG?

With James Bond now under new management over at Amazon, the world is waiting with bated breath to see what this new era of 007 will bring, be it a sticking to the status quo or, more depressingly likely, an over-saturation of extended content with spin-offs and TV shows galore alongside the regular movies. But no matter how Ian Fleming’s super-spy is treated by his new corporate overlords, it’s a fair bet that it probably won’t feel as suave and sophisticated as director Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag, an espionage thriller that’s simply dripping and oozing with enough classiness to rival some of Bond’s most prestigious missions.

Soderbergh and writer David Koepp, both on their second 2025 feature together after the effective ghost story Presence, conjure the fun premise of British spies going at each other’s throats in the most British way possible, which is to say as dry and as cold as an empty refrigerator, while indulging in familiar spy tropes that are given a sleek new lease of life that makes it far more enjoyable to sit through than most other movies trying to do what Bond does best.

To add a bit more detail to that description, Black Bag follows couple George (Michael Fassbender) and Kathryn (Cate Blanchett), both regarded veterans of their intelligence agency who have developed a sophisticated relationship based on trust and devotion. George, a skilled polygrapher, is instructed with singling out a traitor amongst his ranks who is planning to leak a cyberweapon to Russian forces, and quickly narrows his search to five individuals: underlings Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke) and James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page), their respective partners Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela) – a surveillance expert – and Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris) – the agency’s psychiatrist – and Kathryn. Of course, it’s the latter whom George is the most conflicted about, and as his investigation continues, he is compelled to make a decision over whether to fully trust or suspect his own wife in this sensitive scenario.

Approaching their film as though Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was crafted like the director’s trilogy of Danny Ocean heist capers, Soderbergh and Koepp bring a smooth style to their world of spies that almost feels like something you’d see in the 1960s, with fast-paced editing and costume design (such as Fassbender’s turtleneck and spectacle combo that makes him come off as a young Ipcress File-era Michael Caine) reminiscent of films made in the wake of Dr. No’s success. While the film itself takes place in modern-day, with plenty of new-age tech and even indirect references to the Russia-Ukraine war, Black Bag is old-fashioned to a tee, something that director Soderbergh keeps firmly in mind as he applies his own impressive brand of DIY filmmaking – he also serves as his own cinematographer and editor – to a narrative of potential traitors at the spy agency that appears to be the espionage movie’s bread-and-butter, which Koepp delivers with a cool meticulousness that radiates in each carefully chosen line of dialogue.

The director and writer craft a number of calculated sequences that not only serve the diegesis but also allow their respective storytelling skills, as well as those of their performers, to shine brightly. For instance, an early extended dinner scene involving much of the core cast is a mini-triumph of character development, as Koepp allows each guest at least one moment to solidify their personalities and potential hidden motives – which are brought to the surface thanks to a lacing of truth serum in one of the side dishes – while Soderbergh utilises sharp close-ups on the actors’ faces to invite the audience on their own mission to dig beneath the veils of all these professional liars. It’s one of many great sequences in the film that underscore the cold and precise nature of the work that these agents operate within, which everyone in the cast from Fassbender and Blanchett – as a spy couple who could honestly front their own franchise going by the way they work so well off one another – to actual 007 Pierce Brosnan (as their boss) embodies with such sharp precision that it feels like any one of them could snap at any moment. And in the aforementioned dinner scene, there is indeed some painful mischief with a steak knife and a poorly placed appendage.

It’s the kind of film that revels not in high-octane action but the mannerisms in which this ensemble of characters interact with one another, and thankfully the writing is so on the mark that you’re hooked in scenes where, by all accounts, very little is actually going on. That, combined with Soderbergh’s somewhat unconventional pacing, might be ever so slightly off-putting for audiences expecting something more along the lines of a typical Bond outing, but there is plenty more to take away from the way it’s shot, written, performed et al that such misgivings are quickly cast aside because, well, you’re having too much fun to notice. Plus, unlike with their film Presence, there is a stronger and more finite ending that isn’t so abrupt or even unintentionally funny to take you out of it all.

So, while Bond may be undergoing some major corporate reworking as of this review, Black Bag is here to give audiences a familiar taste of what the spy genre can be at its coolest and most sophisticated, while also giving Soderbergh and Koepp a platform to display some of their brightest work in years, one that solidifies theirs as a filmmaking partnership that could result in many more engaging films to come.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Black Bag is a hugely enjoyable spy caper that features some of the strongest work in years by director Steven Soderbergh and writer David Koepp, who handcraft some outstanding sequences which neatly serve the narrative and its engaging characters while also giving the viewer a neatly sophisticated style to fawn over.