by Julian Wood
Worth: $15.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Pierce Brosnan, Naomie Harris, Rege-Jean Page, Tom Burke
Intro:
...swishes along at an elegant pace...
The first rule of Fight Club is that you don’t talk about Fight Club; well, perhaps the same could be said of working for the (secret) Service. In Steven Soderbergh’s jolly spy romp Black Bag, anything that cannot be further elaborated upon attracts the slang term “black bag” (after the convention that diplomats can expect their Black Bag/luggage not to be inspected by customs). This don’t ask/don’t tell agreement must go for conversations, even between intimate partners. Everything is on a need-to-know basis. That said, this particular outfit seems to be run entirely on gossip and – deliberate misinformation notwithstanding – the whole show is leakier than a leaky sieve.
This is made much worse by the fact that more than half the protagonists are either married to or in relationships with one another. As one of the six main characters exclaims, “You guys are all crazy, you are all fucking each other!” This likely isn’t in the Departmental Rule Book, but then Soderbergh’s film wouldn’t work without it. In an odd sort of way, the film could be read as an essay on marriage and intimate relationships.
We start with the main couple: George (Michael Fassbender) and Kathryn (Cate Blanchett) live in a very nice house in a very nice part of London. Having gone about their daily business of spying for His Majesty, they can relax in their salubrious surroundings. They live and breathe spying; even their nightly pillow talk is about who has double crossed who that day.
In terms of approach, the film conjures a world much closer to The Gentlemen than, say, Slow Horses. Everyone here is good looking and upper crust, and they mostly take their privilege for granted. It wearies them when they have to do a bit of actual espionage rather than hold a dinner party. Then finally there is the introduction of a McGuffin in the form of a bit of code that may have fallen into the wrong hands (for a price) and which could spark a war. Not that we care any more than they seem to. Every now and then, one of them has a dialogue line reminding everyone that real people could really die as a consequence of such and such a bungle or defection. You almost feel that one of them is going to say something like: “Oh really, old man, do you have to be so melodramatic?”
As is also the way, the top brass are waiting impatiently for the lower ranks to sort themselves out. Cue a brief cameo from Pierce Brosnan as an equally grizzled and well-dressed spymaster. In yet another genre trope, he has to be “George Simley”, in the sense of trying to find out who is the mole in the ranks before things go tits up. We don’t really get to know the boss, so there is no chance to identify with his plight or delight in his guile. In fact, the main person who we follow while he is working it all out is the George character, played with a crisp elegance by Fasbender.
The film swishes along at an elegant pace but whether it quite succeeds in making us invest is another matter. Somehow, the characters’ nonchalance leans away from the urgency of it all. The cast are all very watchable of course and, if you are not looking for gritty realism or much actual physical spy action, then this might still satisfy.
