Director Steven Soderbergh announced his retirement back in 2011. Happily, his career death was greatly exaggerated.
He's been working steadily in film and TV ever since, mostly keeping things small, indie and indelibly his. The sleek spy thriller "Black Bag" (now in theaters) is the second Soderbergh release this year, after January's shivery ghost story "Presence."
Whatever keeps Soderbergh keeping on is a boon for audiences. Having won an Oscar for directing 2000's "Traffic" and hit the box office jackpot with the "Ocean's" trilogy, Soderbergh often shoots and edits his own films, the better to march to his own distinctly different drum.
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"Black Bag" is Soderbergh at his stealthy, subversive best. And what star power! Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbinder are dynamite as two married spies, still hot for each other and currently wondering if the other is a mole ready to bring down their elite group of British intelligence agents known as the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).
Blanchett is a smooth operator not given to shop talk with her husband George Woodhouse, played with style and subtle sizzle by Fassbender. Whenever Kathryn or George pry too closely into the other's agenda, they use the code term "black bag" to say, back off. That also comes in handy when you're hiding an affair or a more professional betrayal.
Tension really escalates when former 007 Pierce Brosnan enters the fray as Arthur Steiglitz, the big boss at the NCSC who reports that a nuclear-trigger device called Severus is missing and needs to be found before, well, the Russians step in and bring on Armageddon.
Are Kathryn and George too loyal to doubt each other? Don't be too sure. It helps that George invites the more likely suspects to dinner, spiking their food with truth serum.
There's Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomis Harris), the agency shrink who's having it on with George's right-hand, Colonel James Stokes, played by "Bridgerton" season 1 snack Rege-Jean Page. Then we have the ever-randy Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke) eying a new agency recruit, the cyber expert Clarissa Dubose (a terrific Marisa Abela).
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Soderbergh, with screenwriter David Koepp, shakes and stirs the antics of this underhanded crew into a potent cocktail of sex, lies and double dealing. It's hard to tell who's the biggest fake when all the participants are paid experts in subterfuge. A montage of these characters taking polygraph tests is pricelessly funny and a Soderbergh scene for the time capsule.
That's what makes the suspenseful, star-studded "Black Bag" such a blast of twisted, erotic mischief. Each actor elevates the other's game. Just watch Fassbender parry with the electrifying Blanchett or put the screws to what's left of his heart without raising his voice. It's Soderbergh's game to make us aware of the emotions roiling under the unruffled surface of these liars for hire.
I won't argue that "Black Bag" is sometimes too cool for school. But Soderbergh is a wizard at locating the fire under the ice. He's morphed this spy tale into a mesmerizing marriage story. What happens next? I'll take the "black bag" excuse on that one. You'll have too much fun finding out for yourself. But with these actors and this director you're in for a wild ride.
