Rent Black Bag on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: David Koepp
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page, Pierce Brosnan
Rated: R
Watch the trailer
Plot
When intelligence agent Kathryn Woodhouse is suspected of betraying the nation, her husband, also a legendary agent, faces the ultimate test of whether to be loyal to his marriage or his country.
Verdict
Stylish and complex, the problem is that with a movie like this half the fun is guessing the culprit. This is so dense with so few clear cut clues that for most of the movie anyone could be the mastermind. Even with the reveal of the culprit, I'm still indifferent. It's clever in executing the reveal, but it's just the facts and not a surprising reveal. The movie has a disconnect. The stakes never felt big and there were never any clues provided that readily involved me in the mystery.
Skip it.
Review
While it doesn't take much time to get into the plot, it also doesn't provide much context either. If you don't already know the premise, I suppose it's arranged to generate maximum intrigue about what's occurring.
George (Michael Fassbender) is tasked with find a mole in the agency. He's a special agent along with his wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett). He hosts a dinner party with friends and fellow agents as a means to extract information. They swap stories of their exploits. George is a legend, he even surveilled his own father. It's an indication to the audience that George will go to any length. The party gets personal quickly as guests soon start bickering.
Part of the draw is the answer to how both George and Kathryn can be married and agents. Doesn't it create a conflict or at least a potential weakness? Do the secrets pile up and if so what then? George is put in a position where he doubts his wife. The movie has firmly established that George will always complete the job and that he hates liars. If Kathryn is guilty, what's next? We've been told he exposed his own father, so that begs the question of whether he will side with his wife or the agency.
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| Regé-Jean Page, Naomie Harris, Michael Fassbender play James, Zoe, George |
On the first watch I'm wondering about the subtext of every conversation. Someone knows what's going on.With a second watch, I'd wonder if there are any tells. This is a chess game. Every move each character makes, is it because they're guilty and trying to hide or innocent and trying to prove it?
I like the turn of phrase this employs whenever you can't reveal a secret, "black bag." Whenever something is classified, you state it's "black bag" and move on. It's a way to skip over it. How do George and Kathryn deal with that? It has to be complete trust, but George is investigating her. How does that trust work? As George states, you don't ask about the murky parts of the job and the marriage, and you always fight for your partner. How does that work for friends? George leverages Clarissa (Marisa Abela) to get satellite information while tracking his wife. George's friends are limited to other spies. He had them over for dinner, but that was in the course of trying to extract information. Both relationships are a fine line.
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| Cate Blanchett, Tom Burke, Marisa Abela play Kathryn, Freddie, Clarissa |
Ultimately George and Kathryn wonder if they've been set up somehow. The mole uses their relationship to push them into an expected action to cover up whatever else is going on. Who is playing whom? There's a symmetry to where this began and ends, a dinner party.
Could I have figured out the end if I studied the preceding scenes long enough? No. The resolution is too complex to even guess. Part of the fun with a movie like this is guessing who did it. With this movie, any guess is as good as the other. I'm not shocked at the conclusion nor do I find it intriguing. It's just closure to end the movie. Without cogent clues to generate a guess, I was detached from the plot. I'm just waiting on the answer without a stake in it.
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