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‘Black Bag’ Review — Steven Soderbergh’s spy thriller is smart and steamy
A review of the new drama, in theaters March 14, 2025
If Steven Soderbergh is anything, he’s prolific. The man behind movies as diverse as Ocean’s Eleven, Erin Brockovich, and Magic Mike has already released one movie this year, and it’s only March. Presence is a chilly ghost story about a family who find their new home haunted by a spirit, and it’s told from the point of view of the ghost. It’s great.
Just a few months later, Soderbergh is back with Black Bag, a tightly-plotted, conversation-heavy spy thriller that plays like Agatha Christie meets Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. It’s even better than Presence; for my money, it’s the best movie of the year so far. What a breath of fresh air it is to watch a movie that presumes its audience is smart and will be able to follow along!
Set to a pulsating score, Black Bag opens with a long take that follows George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) through a club and back out into an alley, where he meets a colleague named Meacham (Gustaf Skarsgård). Meacham hands him a list of five names — people at the spy agency who might be a traitor. There’s a chance that something code-named “Severus” is about to be released, likely killing thousands, and one of these people may be responsible. The list…