When his beloved wife is suspected of betraying the nation, an intelligence agent faces the ultimate test – loyalty to his marriage or his country.
Trailer
Reviews
CinemaSerf
7
By CinemaSerf
There’s quite a bit of the John le Carré to this story of duplicity in the intelligence community. “George” (Michael Fassbender) is married to “Kathryn” (Cate Blanchett) and despite the fact that they spend much of their lives keeping secrets from one another (those are the “black bag” conversations that they can’t have) their marriage is really quite strong - much to the envy of many of their colleagues. It’s a dinner with a few of them at their home that starts the cat amongst the pigeons as “George” suspects that one of them is a traitor. He has been given the names of everyone around the table - and that includes his wife! They are an eclectic, aggressive, cheating and back-stabbing bunch and he has his work cut out for him, especially when he begins to suspect the real culprit it just a bit too close to home. Meantime, while he is keeping an eye on here, she is working for boss “Stieglitz” (the unimpressive Pierce Brosnan) and he is also playing games of his own. Who is up to what? Who is pulling whose strings? Well that secret is carefully unravelled over ninety minutes of well crafted spy craft here using a cast that’s well led by Fassbender but that also features a strong contribution from Tom Burke’s frankly rather unlikeable “Freddie” and an enjoyably sophisticated degree of plotting and counter-plotting, scheming and even some fishing! Initially, I feared it might be just a version of “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” but it’s darker and more intriguing than that, with no endless combat scenarios and just an hint of menace.
r96sk
8
By r96sk
'Black Bag' is a very good spy thriller! It is a slowburn sorta film and is dialogue heavy, but neither of those things are negatives as long as it delivers - which this 2025 release certainly does. The cast are terrific, most notably Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett.
Marisa Abela, Regé-Jean Page, Tom Burke and Naomie Harris are great in their respective parts too. The story kept me interested all the way through, I wouldn't say it's paced to perfection as it felt a little longer than ~1hr 30mins but that's a minor complaint because it's all watchable stuff.
