Black Bag

Black Bag (2025) opens with a British intelligence officer learning that one of five suspects leaking from inside the service is his own wife. George has to run the investigation, and his first move is to host a dinner party: he puts all five at a table and lets them talk. The whole idea is that marriage and espionage require the same skill. Both run on lying, on spotting a lie, and on knowing what not to ask. The phrase black bag comes from there: the name for the work you cannot tell your spouse about. Steven Soderbergh directed from a screenplay by David Koepp, one of several films the two made in quick succession in this period. Michael Fassbender plays George and Cate Blanchett his wife Kathryn. Pierce Brosnan plays the head of the service, and a Bond actor sitting behind a desk here is a joke that suits the film's register. It never enters action espionage. There is no chase; two long dinner scenes and a polygraph sequence are the most tense things in it. It runs 94 minutes. Good for: espionage built on conversation, marital drama, and Soderbergh's clean cutting. Less good for: there is nothing here for anyone wanting action. Most of the supporting characters are thinly written, and the resolution of the plot comes out too tidy; the film makes its question more interesting than its answer.