Steven Soderbergh is one of those directors I just never managed to connect with.  I’ve only seen a handful of his movies, and aside from The Informant, I don’t think I cared much for any of them; not even the one Ocean’s movie I saw that didn’t star Sandra Bullock.  I suppose now is as good a time as any to familiarize myself with his work as he’s put out two movies more or less back-to-back, which is a rather impressive feat, but are they two showstopper movies from a prolific creator, or was the quick turnaround time a bad omen that I should have heeded?  Let’s find out!!

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Black Bag

Black Bag is owned by Focus Features

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

In modern day Britain, George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) is tasked with finding the identity of a traitor in their midst; a job he’s quite good at, but this time comes with a twist.  Among those suspected of stealing a powerful computer virus is his wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett) who is also a British Intelligence Office and could have just as skillfully absconded with the code as anyone else he suspects.  With not only national security but his marriage on the line, can George uncover the traitor’s identity, and will he know what to do with that knowledge once all the evidence falls into place?

I’m having a hard time pinning down my exact thoughts on this movie, which is rather fitting for a story about deceit and subterfuge. I left this movie with more positive thoughts than negative, and yet very little of it comes to mind as standout moments or genuinely interesting ideas. It’s a boilerplate spy thriller with much of its style and panache replaced by banality and authenticity, which ends up being an interesting take on the genre, but also lacks a lot of the thrills and fantasy that draws people to these type of movies in the first place. The movie is bookended by dinner parties, which end up being its most interesting scenes, so it feels like we’re just meandering our way from one to the other; occasionally livened up by an all too brief cameo from Pierce Brosnan. So what is it that gives this otherwise middle of the road movie an inkling of greatness? Well, as James Bond, Jason Bourne, and Austin Powers have proven in the past, a good spy movie can go quite far with a compelling main character, and this gives us not one but two. Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender don’t just turn in great performances, but have a phenomenal amount of chemistry with a script that constantly has you guessing as to their motives while hoping for the best outcome. Fassbender in particular manages to turn an aloof and distant character into a font of emotional despair through the strength of his subdued yet extremely vulnerable performance. Blanchett has always been perfect casting for the perfect woman, even in shlock like Borderlands, but the role is elevated through the interactions she has with Fassbender which only invests us further in the outcome of this mystery. Their relationship is the heart of the movie, and it’s where it seems that all the effort has gone into, and while a better movie would have incorporated everything else more elegantly and thoughtfully into the relationship drama, it’s strong enough here that I can more or less ignore everything else. Frankly, with its strong emphasis on our main stars and a relatively modest production, the whole thing comes off like a miniseries that was pitched, rejected, and trimmed down to feature length. It would explain why everything else feels very matter of fact, as well as it’s extremely brisk pace, which feels like we’re only just kicking things into gear by the time it decides to start wrapping things up. I appreciate it’s more modest ambitions up to a point, as the depth of the two main characters is certainly enough of a hook to carry a movie, but the scope feels needlessly bloated for something that works on such an intimate level. Dragging not one but two Bond cameos into this leads me to believe that it wants to be taken seriously as a spy film, so in that respect the movie does fail to meet the goals it has set for itself. Still, it can take some solace in the fact that it did something so right that it’s very easy to ignore everything else it got so wrong.

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Black Bag & Presence” →