By Olivia Hunt, First Year English
Steven Soderbergh offers a glamourous thriller, highlighted in softly bloomed, tightly shot London locations and Cate Blanchett’s graceful costuming. This potential Bond replacement takes on most of the franchise’s characteristics, explicitly in Pierce Brosnan’s performance as Arthur Steiglitz, but how effective is Soderbergh’s attempt?
British cinema is yearning for a new Bond. Attempts have been made, in other spy or detective thrillers filled with stacked casts of star power and blockbuster budgets, but I feel that not many directors have fulfilled the quota since No Time to Die in 2021. It was announced in February that Amazon MGM Studios gained creative control over the Bond franchise, resulting in fans across the world to be held in bated breath: what is the next move for Bond?
Perhaps Black Bag (2025) is Soderbergh’s offering during the Bond drought. The film depicts George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender), a stoic protagonist who is a high-ranking British Intelligence officer. Cate Blanchett’s performance of Kathryn Woodhouse fits sleekly as his ‘Bond-Girl’, as she graces the screen in lavish costuming and slinky sensuality. Of course, Soderbergh proposes the stolen hyper-technological cyberweapon of ‘Severus’ as a threat to British nationalism, the root of Bond’s patriotic identity.
Now I’m not saying that Black Bag is a carbon copy of a Bond film, it lacks Bond’s iconic foreign locations as Soderbergh mainly shoots in tightly enclosed, claustrophobic rooms of the headquarters or George and Kathryns’ house. The only exposed, external setting is the lake in which only the male characters enter, remaining fairly still and calm through wide angles, unlike Bond’s chaotic journeys across the globe. Furthermore, the film is less about physical action and leans into David Keopp’s writing. I felt that this was effective in pursuing comedic charm, as action was created in speech, cleverly revealing clues like an Agatha Christie novel.
To summarise the film, George is told of a list of five suspects for the thieving of the cyber-weapon ‘Severus’. The list is composed of colleagues who work alongside him in the intelligence organisation, but there’s a personal catch: Kathryn’s name is also in the list. In order to analyse them all, George arranges a dinner party that after a round of calculated games, ends with Clarissa Debose (Marisa Abela) putting a steak knife into her partner Freddie Smalls’ (Tom Burke) hand. Soderbergh builds tension from the very beginning of the film as secrets are gradually revealed at the dinner table, and other situations as motifs such as therapy sessions between Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris) and the rest of the suspects, a polygraph examination of the group conducted by George himself and a final dinner party towards the end in which the villain is dramatically revealed.
I enjoyed Soderbergh’s use of motifs, and the comical interactions between the characters but felt that some of the plot fell flat. It’s an easy watch: Soderbergh isn’t offering anything too artsy – think of his previous Ocean’s Eleven (2001) with more elegance and flair. Sometimes I felt more compelled by Blanchett’s outfits and hair than the resigned performance of Fassbender, but I suppose you shouldn’t wish for much in a spy-thriller blockbuster with a budget of over $50 million.
I’d rate the film a 6/10: it's pretty and quick, but nothing special or too imaginative other than Keopp’s writing and the tight cinematography by Peter Andrews. Black Bag is probably not the best Bond replacement, but I appreciate Soderbergh’s effort. Maybe it just needs some Adele or Shirley Bassey.
What did you think of Black Bag?
