A terse, darkly shrewd intelligence officer rocking a black roll-neck is surely the part Michael Fassbender was born to play. Combining macho calm with a coolly appraising gaze, he strides through sexy spy thriller Black Bag knowing he simply can’t afford to trust anyone. From Ocean’s 11 and Logan Lucky filmmaker Stephen Soderbergh, the movie plays cat-and-mouse spy games a la John le Carré but has a self-awareness that keeps it fresh.
The marriage of Fassbender’s George Woodhouse and his wife, Kathryn, an agent played by Cate Blanchett, is failing – not least because they may be working at espionage cross-purposes, as George learns from his contact Meacham (Gustaf Skarsgard). Someone has stolen a top-secret cyber tool for possible nuclear mass murder, code-named “Severus”, and that person may well be George’s enigmatic wife.Frequent Soderbergh collaborator David Koepp’s screenplay drips with wit and poison – the film is all fast-talking dialogue with a surprisingly dark sense of humour.
Koepp and Soderbergh are clearly leaning into a throwback Hollywood style, even while grounding their film in an otherwise stark visual reality.if(window.adverts) { window.
adverts.addToArray({"pos": "inread-hb-ros-inews"}); }This is the part Fassbender was born to play (Photo: Claudette Barius/Focus Features)Set against a moody London backdrop, George ducks and dives through side-streets and spends a significant amount of time verbally sparring with his connections, all the.
