"What's on the menu?" That's a good question, especially when maverick helmer Steven Soderbergh is coming out of his cinematic, Howard Hughes phase.
Anyway every time I think Soderbergh has retired from directing, the dude just keeps nearing back, like Jason Voorhees, Chucky, or The Terminator. He's basically saying to his audience, "did you miss me?" So what's Stevie up to in 2025? Well he's almost on holiday making Black Bag, a pseudo thriller that's so compact, last-minute, and terse it might just wither away.
I mean it, man this is "pretty thin" stuff (to quote Danny Glover's Roger Murtaugh). A slither of violence here, a small interrogation scene Clue-style there, a couple of flashbacks toward "Bag's" coda. You take away the brilliantly ominous music of David Holmes and Black Bag is basically an afternoon table read with some really good actors. It's also occasionally slick and uncharacteristically shiny by Soderbergh's routine standards. Yup, just think the opposite of his Traffic shot with a more spherical lens.
93 minutes is the runtime of "Bag" and that's with credits, something about some SIS operatives who are being investigated for betraying the nation by leaking some top-secret, software application. Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, and Naomie Harris star and even good old Pierce Brosnan rolls in for an extended cameo. Unfortunately they are trapped in a flick that feels more like a verbose short than a full-length feature.
Black Bag (the title is referenced once in the first half-hour) is one talky SOB, and I wasn't quite sure what everyone was "talking" about. Because the film is so brief and ends so abruptly, you probably need multiple viewings to figure out the intentions of these deft, British intelligence officers. This is not for entertainment value mind you, it's for you know, the latter. Mixed "bag".
Written by Jesse Burleson
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