BLACK BAG is the latest-latest from prolific retiree Steven Soderbergh. I’m mad at myself that I didn’t see his ghost movie PRESENCE in theaters last month, so I wasn’t gonna miss this. It’s one of his clever, expertly-executed genre exercises, this time reinventing the spy movie. The novelty is that it works completely as an exciting espionage thriller, with betrayals, murder, interrogations, trickery, etc., but done on a small scale, in a mere 2 (two) countries, centering around two dinner party scenes. And that flows naturally out of the fact that the main characters are a happily married couple. (And that it’s not about either of them being kidnapped.)
There is an issue, though. When George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender, JONAH HEX) is handed a list of five agents who may have stolen a top secret software called Severus, the list is made up of two couples he knows and his wife Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchettt, HANNA). He has one week to identify the traitor, and he begins his investigation by inviting the suspects all over for dinner and getting them talking. (The channa masala is drugged.) (read the rest of this shit…)
