Black Bag: A memorable thriller or a lost cause?

Black Bag is a film that has all the ingredients to be an exciting film, with an amazing cast and director, yet it just falls short of this. Loosely following the lines of an engaging story, the film doesn’t go beyond anything more than surface level. Its commitment to the genre of a spy-thriller is something one might expect, without testing the boundaries or going beyond anything you may have seen before. This lack of experimentation comes across as quite mundane, yet in doing so it allows the film to be compact in the short time frame of one hour and 33 minutes.

The film follows a British intelligence agent as he is asked to test the loyalty of not only his co-workers, but his wife, who also happens to be in the same field of work that he is in. This is an interesting enough plot for the cinema to have sold tickets to more people than just myself and my mother the weekend after it had come out. Or maybe the fact that Cate Blanchett had dyed her hair brown was enough to drag a few people out to the cinema. This was the only thing my mum had to comment on about the whole film, so maybe that speaks for its plot more than I could.

I felt as though I was repeatedly being spoon-fed information

For an action film, there is little to no spectacle, which forces an overwhelming amount of dialogue. This is effective when uncovering information about the differing characters, yet I felt as though I was repeatedly being spoon-fed information, which ate away from any enjoyment I could gain from piecing together the story. Particularly when any key bit of knowledge was revealed, it was forcibly shoved down my throat, not to make sure I digested it, but to make sure I was choking on it. I really wished this wasn’t the case, as a part of me feels some satisfaction from noticing small details and picking up on the plot from just that. Maybe Soderbergh just underestimates his audience.

Do not fear, Black Bag is not completely a lost cause. I do have to admit it is a fun story. Delving into the idea of trust in relationships, between a somewhat psychopathic couple with intensely corporate lives, really brought out a guilty pleasure within me. I was keen to see how there could be any stability and trust in their relationship, especially with the get-out-of-jail-free card of them both being intelligence agents. Cate Blanchett, although maybe not in her most adventurous role, manages to give a neat performance that intermingles well with Michael Fassbender’s, which sold their relationship dynamic to me. I would be lying if I didn’t say that I spent most of the film being completely mesmerised by how amazing Cate Blanchett looks in brown, silk outfits – every time she walked on screen, I was in awe of them, but maybe that is just because its Cate Blanchett wearing them.

Soderbergh’s cinematography in these moments may have been the only different element of the film

I do feel like I must mention the film’s interaction with the chamber play, which works completely in its favour, providing the actors the freedom to dance and move around each other. Their positioning around a table was so intimate, yet simulated a stressful atmosphere, with each word or movement feeling much louder than before due to the proximity. Soderbergh’s cinematography in these moments may have been the only different element of the film. I would like to emphasise that my use of ‘different’ is not  necessarily good thing. I found the bright lighting obnoxious and distracting when watching the film, so I am leaning towards it being a bad choice. However, I have been informed that it is a recurring idea in his films, so maybe it was doing more than I realised.

Ultimately, is it a film worth seeing? Not really, but I am sure that next year it will thrive on TikTok at two times speed.