Black Bag

When we first saw the trailer for Black Bag I really didn’t have high hopes for it, despite its incredible cast. Spy thrillers are often conflated with action movies and thus are really not my thing. It's extremely difficult to land a proper spy thriller that doesn’t devolve into a choppy story, or non-stop action that doesn’t aid the characters in any way. That said I was pleasantly surprised by Black Bag, it was a proper spy film and I absolutely think that it is worth the watch.

Let’s start with the casting because having Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender in a film together was a stroke of genius. At first I was not really bought into their chemistry because even though she is I simply do not buy Cate Blanchett as a straight woman. She is simply the lesbian kind of hot and I will not be expanding any further than that. However Micheal Fassbeder’s kind of hot is for the bisexuals so they actually end up really working out. As the movie builds, so does their chemistry.

The story itself is beautifully twisty turny. From the trailer and the first act of the movie, we are meant to suspect the wife, but as always, the easy answer is not the correct one. As my husband pointed out, spy thrillers are nothing more than high stakes detective stories and the thing that matters most is how it is delivered. The investigation, and arguably most importantly the wrap up. And Black Bag does an incredible job with both of these elements.

The supporting cast was great as well but the movie did an incredible job of not making them the focus. The center of the story is always the relationship between this husband and wife. It was possibly the most romantic spy thriller in existence.

Another selling point for this movie is its cinematography. It is composed and shot beautifully. And the camera angles aid in the wonderfully built tension. The way the writing builds the tension and the stakes was done incredibly well. Not only are there end of a country type of stakes but really the stakes we are focused on is the main characters’ relationship. Their marriage is what is central to the story and it drives everything else around it.

There are two scenes at the dinner table with all of our main characters present. The first one is at the very beginning of the movie and the second is our wrap up. In the first dinner scene the dialogue was a little difficult to understand. There was a lot of dialogue and everyone in this movie was British so the heavy accents and extra fast delivery made it a little hard to catch what was being said for a moment, but not so much that there was really anything to miss. At least not anything important. The second scene at the dinner table was the wrap up and it was perhaps one of the best wrap ups of a mystery that I’ve ever seen. And I have seen just so many detective movies and shows. The pacing was incredible and the delivery was great, our husband and wife characters played off each other incredibly well.

Overall I think the movie gets a solid 7/10, a great watch but nothing about it was award worthy. It was certainly a fun movie and honestly a good movie to watch if you want to write or create a spy movie. The actual structure of it was just so clear and precise. And Cate Blanchett is in it so there is an undeniable charm in the film every time she is onscreen.