Black Bag (2025): Movie Review
Soderbergh Crafts a slick and incredibly entertaining Spy flick in what is so far 2025's best film.
Throughout the entirety of Steven Soderbergh’s latest feature, the percolating question of “What lengths would we go to in order to protect our partner?” simmers in the film's entirety. This makes for an incredibly captivating through line as Black Bag is an absolute blast of a whodunit from beginning to end. It never really misses a beat, every member of this cast gets a great moment to themselves and the film is surprisingly hilarious. A genuine riot from beginning to end. I would say this is a signal of Soderbergh coming back to form, but that would be implying he’s been absent in any capacity which simply isn’t true. The top of his game top ranking spy George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) is told of a rat amongst their ranks that stole a very dangerous software known as ‘Severus’ with one of the potential suspects being his wife Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett). With all the other suspects happening also to be couples, Clarissa (Marisa Abela) and Freddie (Tom Burke), and Dr. Zoe Vaughn (Naomie Harris) and James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page), George must make the tough calls and decisions in order to find the mole and also protect his loved one at all cost.
Soderbergh’s most recent features, in collaboration with writer David Koepp, have been hailed by many for their wondrous experimentation and innovation with 2022’s Kimi and this year’s Presence being great examples of these recent critical successes. However, there is a reality where one could argue that Black Bag is much more in line with the likes of Ocean's Eleven (2001), or Logan Lucky (2017) but really, it's more like a mix of all the elements of these into one incredibly solid picture considering a whodunit isn’t a new idea, but the way its interwoven into the Spy elements in this are refreshingly innovative like those aforementioned films. The look of the film is incredibly clean and hazy but that more so adds to the feelings of espionage than hurt it, making every frame of the film pop with style. Soderbergh at this point in his career, is still no stranger to doing so many of the technical elements of the film like editing and acting as his own DP himself, and there’s always a level of controlled mannerism placed in each scene to go hand in hand with the witty cleverness of Koepp’s screenplay. A great example of this is the film's overall tone, there’s all the great hallmarks of what you would expect here, this is an incredibly sexy film, but not an action or espionage heist if that's what you’re looking for, it's much more of a clever mind games film of learning more and more about the relationships of these couples and what drives them, and their relationship in what could mount to one of them being the culprit and this great energy resides in the entirety of the film and its fucking great. The two dinner table scenes at George and Kathryn’s home deliver this in spades, there are never dull moments, always funny, and always keeps making you second guess yourself while watching, which is what all good whodunits should strive for.
Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchette are as always great here as the quiet but sharp and stoic and femme fatale archetypes perspectives, (Good actors are good at their jobs!!) but the other big standout of the cast despite everyone being great here is Marisa Abela, and she is where the vast majority of the films humor resides and has so many incredible moments here sometimes even managing to steal the whole film away. The score from David Holmes (a Soderbergh collaborator on mainly the Ocean's trilogy) also complements each scene nicely and nails the spy vibes frequently.
Other than incredibly small qualms here and there there’s virtually nothing to complain about when it comes to Black Bag. It's a mix of Soderbergh and his crew doing what they do best in this space while also adding a new flavor to its slick, lean, and mean design. It’s an absolute riot, has an incredible ensemble cast, a 90-minute runtime, and shows just how strong a loving couple’s relationship can be, even in a line of work where most of your job is, well, lying.
4.5/5 Stars
Black Bag gets a wide release in movie theaters this Friday March 14th.