Soderbergh Delivers a First-Rate Spy Drama in ‘Black Bag’

Soderbergh Delivers a First-Rate Spy Drama in ‘Black Bag’

By Alex McPherson

Efficient, well-acted, and sleek as hell, director Steven Soderbergh’s “Black Bag” is pure escapist fun, weaving a tale of messy interpersonal drama into a spy yarn whose dense plotting yields ample rewards.

British intelligence officer George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) is a cold, calculating, and loyal specialist who can’t stand liars but takes a certain amount of pleasure in rooting them out. He’s told by his superior, Philip Meacham (Gustaf Skarsgard), that a top-secret software program called Severus has been leaked, and  he’s got to “find the rat” in a week’s time or millions of people will die.

Seems like an easy enough task for George who, when he was 37 years old, investigated his own father (once working at the same institution himself) for having an affair.

The only catch is that Meacham reveals that George’s beautiful and enigmatic wife who also works at the agency, Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett), is one of the five suspects. This troubles George; he and Kathryn share a deep, intimate bond, based on unwavering trust and loyalty to each other.  Why would she betray him and his country?

George invites the other four individuals — who also happen to be couples — over for dinner and drinks (which include truth serum) hoping to shake loose who leaked Severus. There’s the satellite imagery specialist Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela) and her trouble-making boyfriend and managing agent Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke); and wry agency shrink Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris) and her vain partner, the recently-promoted Col. James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page).

This group of horny, mentally troubled spies becomes quickly undone thanks to George’s truth serum: a betrayal is revealed, and a hand is promptly stabbed with a knife. But George’s mission isn’t accomplished, and as the plot thickens — especially when the agency’s haughty and slick-haired boss Arthur Stieglitz (Pierce Brosnan, chewing copious scenery) comes onto the scene — a story of double-crosses, insecurities, and life-or-death stakes reveals itself. Most importantly, though, can George and Kathryn’s marriage survive in a job where the code-word “black bag” conceals all secrets?

Indeed, “Black Bag” uses familiar trappings of the spy genre to tell a story about human connections, both frayed and resilient, delivered with smooth style and an ensemble flaunting their star power in entertainingly self-aware fashion. Soderbergh’s film (his second this year after the thrillingly experimental “Presence”)  is a no-frills endeavor, moving at a fast clip as the twists stack up and remain so damn fun to watch. 

Fassbender shines particularly brightly within the star-studded cast, adding another notch to his “malfunctioning robot” characters, which was most recently personified in David Fincher’s “The Killer.” George is charismatic yet socially stunted, moving with a smooth, often darkly funny determination toward conclusions that might terrify him. His stone-cold façade erodes as he evaluates how much Kathryn ultimately means to him, and the lengths he’s willing to go to protect her.

Blanchett exudes effortless coolness as Kathryn, remaining mysterious yet right at home with George. David Koepp’s script portrays their connection with just enough mystery and ambiguity to keep us on our toes as to Kathryn’s ultimate intentions, testing whether we believe in their enduring bond as surrounding characters’ personal and professional lives fall apart, sometimes spectacularly.

The entire ensemble is excellent, with Abela and Brosnan the clear standouts. Abela makes a meal of Koepp’s crackly, quip-filled script; her Clarissa, unsure how to navigate romance within the spy world along with her own insecurities, is feisty and impulsive. She remains compelled to act for what she considers the greater good. Brosnan, in a seemingly anti-James-Bond role, makes a strong impression despite limited screen time, oscillating between confident and increasingly uncomfortable as the plot spirals further out of control.

The ensemble’s talent carries “Black Bag” a long way, but, even with a lesser cast, there’s still much to appreciate from a stylistic perspective. David Holmes’s electronic score pulses in sync with each new revelation; percussive beats amid jazzy themes symbolically tie into the characters’ eroding disguises.

Scenes are lit with a warm, hazy glow, and Soderbergh — who also handled cinematography and editing — opts for finely-tuned precision, not wasting any time as the labyrinthine plot progresses. The aforementioned dinner scene and a polygraph test later in the film are particular standouts, with Koepp’s script and Soderbergh’s editing working in perfect, tension-filled harmony.

It’s refreshing to see a film like “Black Bag” that trusts viewers to follow along with the characters’ lingo and technology without talking down. The (disquietingly current) geopolitics take a backseat to the characters’ interpersonal happenings.

In its own heightened, somewhat soapy way, “Black Bag” has much to say about romantic relationships and the trust necessary to keep them afloat, even in the treacherous terrain of spy craft. Admittedly, “poignancy” is somewhat sidelined in service of keeping the film’s infectiously enjoyable momentum.    

Clocking in at 93 minutes, “Black Bag” flies by and remains prime for future rewatches — a confident, intelligent, sexy spy story that signals one of the year’s first great films.

“Black Bag” is a spy thriller directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Rege-Jean Page, Pierce Brosnan, Naomie Harris, Tom Burke, Marisa Abela and Gustaf Skarsgard. It is rated R for language including some sexual references, and some violence, and the runtime is 1 hour, 33 minutes. It opened in theaters March 14. Alex’s Grade: A

Marisa Abela Can’t Save Upsetting ‘Back to Black’ Biopic

Marisa Abela Can’t Save Upsetting ‘Back to Black’ Biopic

By Alex McPherson

Featuring excellent performances from Marisa Abela and Jack O’Connell, but otherwise coming across as a surface-level retelling of singer Amy Winehouse’s tumultuous rise and fall, director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s “Back to Black” ultimately does little to justify its existence.

Taylor-Johnson’s film, which has the support of the Winehouse estate (unlike Asif Kapadia’s superior 2015 documentary “Amy”), is less an honest portrayal of the performer’s tragically short life than it is an attempt to rewrite history. It smooths over well-documented truths and packages them into rote drama that sacrifices nuance for miserablism.

“Back to Black” begins in Camden Town, London, in 2002, where the 18-year-old Winehouse – a rebellious, wry soul with a love of jazz – is a burgeoning talent, channeling old-school sounds to modern audiences and using music to express herself in the face of life’s challenges.

Her divorced parents Janis (Juliet Cowan, who gets a notably small amount of screen time) and Mitch (Eddie Marsan) recognize Amy’s undeniable skill, as does her loving grandmother Cynthia (a typically comforting Lesley Manville), who encourages her to pursue a music career. Before long, Amy does, thanks to her future band manager Nick Shymansky (Sam Buchanan) but, as Matt Greenhalgh’s screenplay smugly foreshadows, her downfall will soon follow.

Funny, passionate, and strong-willed, with a distinctive 50’s-60’s inspired style to boot, yet also an emotionally unstable, bulimic alcoholic, Amy is a force to be reckoned with – even though Taylor-Johnson neglects to give viewers much context into why she is the way she is. She insists to record label suits that she “ain’t no spice girl,” refusing to compromise on her songs and performances.

But when she begins an on-again, off-again relationship with handsome scumbag Blake Fielder-Civil (O’Connell), Amy spirals into further substance abuse and codependency as her stardom rises. It all eventually proves fatal: she’s a victim of fame, drug abuse, and bad actors feigning support while exacerbating her decline.

Marisa Abela and Jack O’Connell as Amy Winehouse and Blake Civil-Fielder

Addictions and personal life chaos aside, Amy was a one-of-a-kind talent that shouldn’t be reduced to a by-the-numbers biopic treatment. Unfortunately, Taylor-Johnson is not up to the task. What results is a puzzling experience that lacks insight, perspective, and purpose, other than to serve as an acting showcase and an attempt at whitewashing history into sanitized drama for the masses.

At least Abela gives it her all. She captures Amy’s inherent likability, volatility, and inner demons with an authentic attention-to-detail, commanding her every scene even when the script lets her down. Abela does her own singing for the film, too (with the standout being her titular “Back to Black”).

While Amy’s voice is impossible to recreate, Abela does a valiant job nonetheless, in the scattered moments that Taylor-Johnson actually foregrounds the music rather than Amy’s conflicts. Scenes of Amy’s creative process are half-baked – reduced to rushed, solitary brainstorming sessions – but Abela conveys a youthful, exuberant fervor that’s infectious and alluring.

O’Connell, too, is fittingly charismatic. Blake emanates bad boy vibes that Amy is immediately drawn to, despite the fact that Blake has a girlfriend when they begin their flirtation. Abela and O’Connell have great chemistry, and the early stages of their relationship are charming and playful, if tinged with the dark knowledge of the horrors to come. 

Still, the film’s rushed pacing makes it difficult to fully buy into their bond – especially since Amy’s impulsive behaviors and attachment issues aren’t given enough context for us to understand where she’s coming from. Since Taylor-Johnson’s film focuses on a “snapshot in time,” primarily the period between the release of Amy’s first album, “Frank,” and the grammy-winning “Back to Black,” we don’t get much insight into her troubled childhood.

This is likely to save face for Mitch, who the film treats gingerly; his well-documented enabling of Amy’s vices and mental health struggles is downplayed, as is the decade during Amy’s youth in which he had an affair and wasn’t present in the household.

Blake is depicted both as a victim and a victimizer – seemingly powerless to resist Amy’s charms, but manipulating her to fuel his own addictions; his unpredictable behaviors do a number on Amy’s fragile psyche as their relationship becomes increasingly public and destructive. But “Back to Black” still posits that Amy introduced herself to heroin – an odd choice on Taylor-Johnson’s part that feeds into the film’s view of Amy as an unavoidable trainwreck, a person who was doomed from the start and who lacks the will to change.

Indeed, Taylor-Johnson characterizes Amy as a hopeless soul experiencing an inevitable decline, a victim of her own heart, rather than foregrounding Amy the artist. The music itself is almost an afterthought, a consequence of Amy’s inner turmoil rather than a genuine expression of her craft, as the film erratically jumps through time to the next big crisis in Amy’s life.

The portrayal of the media storm surrounding Amy, too, is just window-dressing; Taylor-Johnson doesn’t effectively capture the way her music grips the nation or the celebrity pressure that propels Amy further into oblivion, relying on merely workmanlike direction. The film even pulls its punches in the end, letting its troubled “heroine” drift offscreen, as if the film is too scared to depict the depths of her suffering.

For someone who wanted to be known for her music above all else, it’s downright irresponsible to frame her story like this — Taylor-Johnson molds Amy’s trauma into accessible entertainment. With Kapadia’s excellent documentary providing a far more meaningful portrait, “Back to Black” begs the question: why was this biopic necessary?

“Back to Black” is a 2024 biopic directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson and starring Marisa Abela, Jack O’Connell, Eddie Marsan, Lesley Manville and Sam Buchanan. It is rated R for drug use, language throughout, sexual content and nudity, and runtime is 2 hours, 2 minutes. It opened in theatres May 17. Alex’s Grade: C-