Black Bag (2025)

[BluBonnet]

[OABJYU]

Where does the faithful border bin liner fit into this?

[BluBonnet]

Tickets are now on sale; there's also an early access screening on the 12th.

[BluBonnet]

Senior writer, The Wrap:



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[BluBonnet]

Metacritic

It's confirmed that the early preview will be in Dolby Cinema at AMC theaters

[BluBonnet]

[BluBonnet]

Metacritic

[CreasyBear]

Do you ever go outside?

[MifuneFan]

I'm surprised by the short runtime for this one. I thought it would qr least be 100 mins, or even 2 hours or more from the trailer. Nice to see a leaner spy thriller come out. Just booked my ticket to see it in Dolby Cinema on Sat.

[n0tredom]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

I'm surprised by the short runtime for this one. I thought it would qr least be 100 mins, or even 2 hours or more from the trailer. Nice to see a leaner spy thriller come out. Just booked my ticket to see it in Dolby Cinema on Sat.

I saw it tonight in Dolby Cinema. I really enjoyed the fast pace and the short runtime. Not a wasted minute.

[The Great Owl]

Four and a half stars

George and Kathryn, played by Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett, have established their marriage on a balancing beam of trust and boundaries, where their relationship remains detached from their respective occupations at a British intelligence agency that employs them for separate classified operations under different clearance levels. If one of them asks the other for information that could potentially compromise a work secret, then the code answer is always “black bag.” When George is given a list of five people from the agency, one of whom is his wife, and tasked with finding out which of the five is a possible mole, he must weigh his personal loyalties against his obligations to his country.

With its 93-minute run time, the 2025 spy thriller, Black Bag, directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by David Koepp, is a lean and mean efficiency machine, combining sleekness, sexiness, tension, danger, death, and intricate John le Carré-esque narrative twists in a way that would make 1940s-era Alfred Hitchcock proud. The end result succeeds admirably well both as a tautly intelligent mediation on the idea that a successful marriage is one where the spouses each maintain their own private spaces and as a wake-up call to studios that filmmakers should go back to normalizing the ability to tell multilayered hour-and-a-half cinematic stories that do not overstay their welcome.

An early dinner scene that assembles all of the suspected parties together is its own riveting reward, one where we are introduced to an agency psychiatrist, played by Naomie Harris, a shamelessly philandering rogue played by Tom Burke, an astute younger agent played by Regé-Jean Page, and a feisty surveillance expert played by Marisa Abela. Topping off this layer cake of top-notch actors is Pierce Brosnan, who lends a hammy excellence to his role of a company senior. All of the above are given time to shine in this singleness-of-effect tale that Soderbergh helms with a meticulous ruthlessness equaling that of the characters themselves.

One particular line from Black Bag perfectly captures the zeitgeist of current real-life events. “When you can lie about everything, how do you tell the truth about anything?”
The answer in reality is the same as the answer in the movie. Ignore the peripheral distractions, focus on one cause that matters most to you, and commit to that cause with the utmost ferocity.

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

Four and a half stars

Actually, I am in a generous way tonight. Five stars.

[BluBonnet]

I think this is easily a "top 5" in Soderbergh's filmography.

Cannot wait to watch it again, really want to see how carefully everything is laid out, plot wise.

Also enjoyed Brosnan's performance very much, especially the way it subverts expectations one might have:

How Black Bag subverts Pierce Brosnan's history as James Bond: 'That's the fun elephant in the room'

Pierce Brosnan is shaking and stirring up his role in the world of espionage.

After famously playing agent James Bond in four films, Brosnan is now heading up an intelligence agency in Black Bag, the new film from Steven Soderbergh.

The film follows two married spies, George (Michael Fassbender) and Kathryn (Cate Blanchett), who must work their marriage around the inevitable secrecy that is part and parcel of their jobs. When George receives a list of possible traitors within their organization — and it includes Kathryn — he begins to investigate the true identity of the turncoat.

Their boss, Arthur Stieglitz (Brosnan), is a force to be reckoned with — a menacing figure who demands precision and flawless work from his employees. But seeing Brosnan as the head of a spy organization can't help but bring to mind his performance as one of the world's best-known fictional spies.

[BluBonnet]

NYT Critic’s Pick



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(It is also a BluBonnet’s Pick )

[Losey]

Loved it. Elegant and perfectly controlled in a minimalist but very effective way, with very funny and very ingenious twists and turns.

[The Great Owl]

I did not mention it in my review, but one scene in Black Bag features a song from Suki Waterhouse.

I own all of the Suki Waterhouse albums and have seen her in concert three times. Such an amazing artist.

[Dreamliner330]

I saw Black Bag in Dolby Cinema. It’s very talky, but the concept is good. Unfortunately the story itself is a bit slow and takes awhile to get going. It does finally get going but then there’s only 20 minutes left. There are a few unexpectedly funny moments. At least it was short.

Soderbergh has directed interesting movies (Kimi was surprisingly good) but it’s been a long time since he really knocked one out of the park.

6/10

[acroyear2]

I can get easily lost in spy thriller movie (in a bad way) with my brain attempting to process all the details of the plot as its occurring.

I can also get easily lost in spy thriller movie (in a good way) when its lean, taut, and featuring a winning ensemble cast with great chemistry and sharp dialogue to bounce off each other.

I might not have caught every twist, but this was one of the best movie experiences this year thus far.

[BluBonnet]

Watched it a 2nd time, definitely one of Soderbergh’s very best movies, it really holds up to a repeat viewing giving you a better chance to see how carefully everything is laid out, including some delicious misdirects that take the viewer’s suspicion in the wrong direction.

But even when you already know the who-did-what-and-how, it remains a lot of fun to watch such a dazzling cast pull off one neat trick after another.

Marisa Abela is a particular delight, especially in the interrogation sequence and the two diners. And Ragé-Jean Page is so suave and smooth that it kinda makes you wish they’d cast him as 007, pronto.

(Yes we do have an actual ex-007 in the cast as well, and the less said about him the best)

[BigPudge]

I really dug this movie. It had the potential to be super boring, but it never really was. It kept you intrigued throughout the story right until the closing credits.

For me, Soderbergh is 2 for 2 this year as I just saw Presence last week and was also fully engaged throughout that one as well (if I had to pick just one, Black Bag is def the better of the 2).

This was a nice slow build thriller which made my double feature with Novocaine quite the whiplash!