Black Bag (2025)
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
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.
26 connections found
View:
26 films that influenced Black Bag
What critics say influenced Black Bag
He compares it to classics like Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Out of Sight…
Unlike Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), George and Kathryn know they are in the same line of work, and it is their ability to compartmentalize–or not–that drives much of the tension in their relationship.
If you’re expecting “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” with British accents, look elsewhere.
Less maudlin than “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” (2011)…
This is “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” for the emotionally entangled.
Michael Fassbender’s character in Steven Soderbergh’s latest is what I imagine legendary British spy writer John le Carré’s most famous character, George Smiley—a mild-mannered, long-suffering spy with a persistently unfaithful wife—could be if he weren’t such a cuck.
Soderbergh’s latest plays like a workplace drama with elements of Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005) and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011).
Black Bag isn’t Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
It gives not only the character a sense of cool, but the film itself as we follow alongside him as he attempts to unravel the mystery and pull what he can from those around him while they remain none the wiser. It’s an immersive, engrossing experience that makes tracking the mystery fun in a way that calls to mind the cunning of Nick Charles from the previously mentioned Thin Man franchise…
Many have compared its central romance to The Thin Man, and indeed Koepp had been working on a remake of The Thin Man back in 2011…
…turns the story into a cocktail of The Thin Man and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
And is it a sly nod to Michael Caine’s famous 1960s spook Harry Palmer from THE IPCRESS FILE that Fassbender wears dark-rimmed glasses here?
…and, for die-hard spy film fanatics, Harry Palmer, played by Michael Caine in five films throughout the 1960s and ’90s.
…evoking memories of Michael Caine in The Ipcress File…
Advertisement
…set in a world with Mission: Impossible technology…
…his work on Brian De Palma’s Mission: Impossible (1996), where he and Robert Towne (Chinatown, 1974) both worked on elements of the script. Mission: Impossible, in and around De Palma’s amazing work with split diopters and dutch angles, also centers on one of its lead characters–Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt–being accused of being a mole and also involves questions of love and loyalty.
…scripted by pliable Hollywood veteran David Koepp (Jurassic World: Rebirth, Carlito’s Way, Mission: Impossible).
…having co-written the story and screenplay for the very first "Mission: Impossible" film from all the way back in 1996…
…the smart writing of David Kopek (“Mission: Impossible,” 1996 and “Indiana Jones: The Dial of Destiny,” 2023)…
He’s no stranger to the world of spy thrillers either, having also written Mission: Impossible when it was first adapted for the big screen in the late 1990s.
We've had a reaction to the suave in grittier fare, and that's Bourne fruit.
…or asexual killing machines (Jason Bourne)…
He compares it to classics like Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Out of Sight…
Abela’s presence is begging for a movie with the titanic sparks found in the trunk in Out of Sight.
Even so, Black Bag is a new mode for the filmmaker, whose Haywire and Out of Sight both feel adjacent to his latest…
There’s the sexiness of Out of Sight…
…it’s hard not to wish that the newly prolific Soderbergh had woken up a bit to give the routine plot machinations in this London-set spy yarn the same spark that he’s brought to similar genre throwbacks in the past, among them 1998’s Out of Sight.
Director/cinematographer/editor Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight) and screenwriter David Koepp (Jurassic Park) are very good at filmcraft.
Instead, he drugs their food and plays a psychological game that makes “Clue” look like a slumber party.
More like a drawing room game of Clue than the twisty puzzle it presents itself as…
Advertisement
Shows like SLOW HORSES and BLACK DOVES are such big streaming hits that their spy thrillers get renewed as soon as a season drops.
It’s of a piece with the chaos the Slow Horses would have to clean up—a high compliment for contemporary spy fiction.
Even so, Black Bag is a new mode for the filmmaker, whose Haywire and Out of Sight both feel adjacent to his latest…
His new spy thriller sees the director back on narratively familiar turf in the vein of Haywire, but where that film offered unfiltered action setpieces with minimal commentary, Black Bag’s delights are more psychological…
…he’d previously tackled in 2011’s “Haywire.” This time, however, Soderbergh continues his drive to innovate by introducing a new twist: in “Black Bag,” the director envisions a version of “Haywire” that actually comes across like a finished film.
…the immediate spy-thriller tension of Haywire…
Steven Soderbergh is no stranger to the genre, though Haywire wasn't to everyone's tastes this is, if possible, even more direct.
Soderbergh has dabbled in spy games before with the 2011 more action-oriented Haywire starring Gina Carano, Ewan McGregor and Fassbender.