The calm before the breach. No one's saying grace, but everyone's holding secrets.
The Invitation That Wasn’t
Soderbergh is back in full vintage form—his signature sharp framing, impeccable eye for production design, whiptight pacing, and mainstay composer David Holmes’ pulse-quickening score, all accounted for.
It’s like Ocean’s Eleven trimmed down on Ozempic—lean muscle, no fat.
Featuring a fraction of his typically sprawling cast size, Black Bag emerges as sexy and sleek and delivers an invigorating punch wrapped up in a taut 90-minute package—more of those, please! Obviously, none of the plot should be divulged in advance, so I’ll keep this relatively short (for me).
What starts as a juicy, slow-burn dinner party setup—where I half-expected the entire film to unfold Invitation-style—quickly pivots into an almost chamber-piece MI6 workplace thriller, where allegiances blur, motivations unravel, and boundaries get obliterated.
We don’t need to follow her. We’re already watching.
Eyes Everywhere
The entire cast turns in pitch-perfect performances.
Michael Fassbinder may just be playing android-adjacent from his work on the Alien films, but his calculating iciness pairs beautifully here with a shockingly ripped Cate Blanchett, determined to meet him beat-for-beat.
Naomie Harris (aka Moneypenny, Moonlight) and Regé-Jean Page (Bridgerton) are radiant, while Tom Burke (The Souvenir) and Marisa Abela (Amy Winehouse in Back to Black) make for the most fascinating pair, fully owning the undercurrent of black comedy that pulses underneath the constant tension felt by all.
Is it absurd that half of British Intelligence appears to be sleeping with the other half while the agency simply turns a blind eye? Naturally. But if that type of predicate detail is likely to ruin the movie, much of this entire genre should be considered off-limits to you. It’s best to turn off your brain and just lean into the proceedings regardless.
When the operation requires a decoy, but the decoy is the mission.
Power Walk
Black Bag never tries to reinvent the genre—and frankly, it doesn’t need to.
It may feel somewhat slight, but it’s tightly wound, crisply written, and paced with the confidence of filmmakers who know sometimes all we want is a brisk, stylish spy yarn to chew on.
MISSION DEBRIEF:
+ 1 point for Abela knowing how to punctuate a dinner party
+ 3 points for Pierce Brosnan conveying rage through the single twitch of an eye bag
+ 5 points for teaching the world a novel benefit of Kegel exercises
Less “thinkpiece,” more centerpiece of a damn good time at the movies.
📊 [PLAYBACK: PERFORMANCE]
Budget: $50-60M Worldwide Box Office: $42.1M
Cinema DEFCON Threat Assessment: 48 Days — Theatrical-to-Streaming Window
Yes, technically squeaks into DEFCON 3 on paper—by just a few days—but its underperfomance was so clearly the result of expections for a fast streaming drop. So, sorry, it gets slapped with DEFCON 2 anyway.
Verdict Critics and the few who saw it praised its cool precision, but audiences largely evaded this glossy marital espionage. A short theatrical run and swift VOD pivot left Soderbergh frustrated and his stylish caper in the red. A spy game apparently too refined for the multiplex.
🎬 [PLAYBACK: TRAILER]
Get intrigued in the set-up… or don’t. This one’s probably best enjoyed cold anyway.
