REVIEW:
Black Bag was okay. It’s a Steven Soderbergh British spy thriller… Bond without the action. It’s more psychological than anything else, which would be fine, if there were more threats. It also would have helped if the plot wasn’t quite so complicated.
The gist is that Michael Fasbender and Cate Blanchet play a married couple who are both members of an elite secret team. There are five other members. To get things started, one of these members visits Fasbender and tells him there’s a mole in the group, selling their secrets to outside agencies. This mole may even be Fasbender’s wife. And to top it off, the team member who tells Fasbender this and tasks him with finding the mole is killed shortly after.
That’s a great opening. What follows, unfortunately, are mostly a series of conversations that don’t really get us anywhere. It’s like the movie is just stalling until the end. Yes, characters suspect each other. Yes, there’s a scene where Fasbender spies on his wife, only fir him to tell someone that he only watches her so that he can protect her, in case she ends up in a dangerous situation. I like the dinner party opening and closing scenes, to bookend the movie, but there’s very little of substance in between. Even Pierce Brosnan appearing for a couple of scenes (just to really drive home that Bond connection,) can’t save this one. With more action and more immediate threats, this could have been better.