William Moulton Marston, the psychologist who created Wonder Woman thoroughly despised lying, which is why she had with her the “truth lasso”. A tool to compel people to tell the truth when restrained by it.  Marston hated it so much that he also invented the lie detector, yep its true. In “Black Bag” George Woodhouse, played sensationally by Michael Fassbender, matches Marston in their disdainment to lying.  So much, that he uses a lie detector on his colleagues in the film. A scene that reminded me of Marston. It’s a wild position for George, since he and his wife Kathryn work at a surveillance/intelligence agency. A profession even at a bureaucratic level encourages and relies on lying. Without it, they are out of business of course. You think a film about a married couple who work as spies, lying and deceit would be the core theme of the film, instead director Steven Soderbergh marvelously navigates the story to focus on relationships, an interconnecting thread of friends and couples. An unique angle for a spy movie, so brilliantly made that it is one of the best films of the year. 

Written splendidly by the veteran screenwriter David Koepp, the catalyst is that there is a mole in the organization. The likely candidates could be one of George’s close colleagues or his wife, OR da-dum, is George the one being deceived into a frame job. Koepp keeps the exposition minimal, flushes out all the characters, and peppers in some comedy to give us a rich, polished, and above all, shadowy setting. A playground that Soderbergh excels in. It also helps that this is one of the best edited films made in a long time to keep the tension and pace at nearly perfect. The choices of close-ups of when and of what is the glue to this film, smoothly inserted, a masterclass of it. The balance of moving, and still camera elevates the whole experience to a chef’s kiss. Soderbergh aces when the story conceals the antagonist at the right time, and this does it,  

The performances are all terrific, Cate Blanchett, PIerce Brosnan, and Tom Burke all top notch, but the real standout is Marissa Abela playing Clarissa. A performance done so well, I feel comfortable to submit a nomination as best supporting actress of the year for the Minnesota Film Critics Association. Black Bag is a great film, refined and sturdy. But I might be a bit biased to that since I am a massive fan of film noirs, and putting the adjective black in your title, it feels like a reflex that I am going to enjoy the film, it’s just my bag.