It’s always hilarious that the James Bond movies are part of the “spy” genre. Sure, that handsome devil is a secret agent who saves the world every couple of years, but he doesn’t do a whole lot of “spying,” does he? He doesn’t embed himself inside an enemy organization for years, insidiously gaining his co-workers’ trust and quietly feeding intelligence back to his handlers. He goes in guns a-blazing, not only giving out his real name but repeating it just for giggles. James Bond isn’t a spy. He’s a power fantasy with multiple product placement deals.
Steven Soderbergh’s new thriller “Black Bag” is a movie about actual spies. They’re probably not realistic either, but at least they’re putting in the damn work. They manipulate. They betray. And when they have sex with each other it’s not an unforgettable night on the Riviera with zero consequences. The spies in “Black Bag” are deeply insecure, which is a natural side effect when you’re a professional liar whose dating pool consists entirely of other professional liars.
“Black Bag” stars Michael Fassbender as George, an espionage agent with an impenetrable mystique and an obsessive attention to detail. He’s assigned to investigate his co-workers, one of whom has stolen what George Harrison would have called “A thingy! A fiendish thingy!” All of the suspects are George’s so-called friends and all of them are currently boinking each other, or have boinked in the past, or might realistically boink in the future. And to top it all off, one of them is George’s wife, Kathryn, played by Cate Blanchett.
It all begins at a dinner party where George spikes the main course with truth serum, or its nearest real-world equivalent, which makes all the lovers snippy. And a little stabby. Frankly I could have watched a whole film about these adulterous and sexy middle-aged spies airing their dirty laundry on date night with the fate of the free world at stake and been riveted, especially with this cast. Tom Burke and Marisa Abela play seemingly mismatched lovers, Regé-Jean Page and Naomie Harris play seemingly well-matched lovers. They’re all very sexy. They’re also all jerks. When they’re not flinging flirts they’re spitting venom.
Eventually the action leaves George and Kathryn’s dining room and David Koepp’s screenplay — his best work in years — brings their relationship dramas into the office, and the espionage plot into the relationships. There’s no plot and subplot to speak of in the world of “Black Bag,” they’re one and the same. The psychological profile that makes you the perfect spy makes you a terrible lover, and your terrible love life is your greatest weakness in the field. These are fastidious people with messy souls. Who else would become a secret agent in a world where being a spy is like living in a Neil LaBute movie where all your friends and lovers have guns and permission to kill you?
Every scene in “Black Bag” is a tennis match. Half of them are the perfect excuse for great actors to play off each other. There’s a scene where George gives all the other characters a polygraph test and the movie takes a nice long breather just to enjoy it. Naomie Harris plays a psychologist whose clients are all secretive by trade and nature, so pulling apart their psyche is like pulling teeth. Marisa Abela spends a lot of her scenes with Michael Fassbender, proving the youngest member of this cast is every bit the veterans’ equal. Pierce Brosnan even stops by to play their a-hole boss, possibly as a middle finger to the spy movie mentality he helped propagate with “GoldenEye,” “Tomorrow Never Dies,” “The World is Not Enough” and “Die Another Day.” Or maybe it’s just because this was a damn good script.
Damn good cinematography too. Steven Soderbergh likes to shoot his own movies, using the pseudonym “Peter Andrews,” and Peter Andrews is on fire with this project. Creamy shadows and blooming lights give George and Kathryn’s house an unnatural aura, half comforting and half interrogational. It’s a smooth and appealing aesthetic, sometimes sensual and sometimes icy, and always captivating to watch.
In a strange way “Black Bag” reminds me most of the 1967 satirical version of “Casino Royale,” in which David Niven plays an openly asexual James Bond who’s called out of retirement because all the other spies keep getting killed mid-coitus in the Swingin’ 1960s. It’s a smart satire of the mid-20th century sexual revolution, filtered through the cinema of James Bond, one of the movement’s iconic poster boys, who proves himself far more effective when his libido isn’t involved. The solution to all the spies’ problems in “Black Bag” would probably also be to stop having sex with each other, but they can’t help it. Unless they approach their own relationships with the commitment and discipline their jobs require, they’ll be traitors to their lovers and possibly to their country.
“Black Bag” digs into the superficially erogenous spy genre and finds inside it a desperate need for therapy. It’s an intricately intertwined tale of sexual strife and political machinations, and a strong reminder at the heart of every drama, personal or political, there’s human weakness. Human weakness is “Black Bag’s” greatest strength. It’s an insidiously great spy movie, mature and satisfying.
“Black Bag” hits theaters on March 14.
