ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
"Ocean's 11" director Steven Soderbergh said in 2013 that he was retiring from filmmaking. But like much of Soderbergh's work, this declaration came with a trick ending. After a very brief hiatus, he went on to direct nine more movies, and this weekend brings the 10th - the spy thriller "Black Bag." Critic Bob Mondello has this review.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: We begin with the sort of show-offy (ph), long-take camera shot that opens "Good Fellas," following a British MI6 agent through a London where every light seems to have a halo and a crowded neon lit club is the perfect spot for sharing secrets. Tonight, George learns that MI6 has sprung a leak. Got to plug that leak.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACK BAG")
GUSTAF SKARSGARD: (As Philip Meacham) How long do you think you'll need?
MICHAEL FASSBENDER: (As George Woodhouse) Give me two weeks.
SKARSGARD: (As Philip Meacham) Thousands of innocent people will die.
FASSBENDER: (As George Woodhouse) OK, one week. Who's the suspect?
REGE-JEAN PAGE: (As Col. James Stokes) Your wife.
MONDELLO: Now, George's wife, Kathryn, and he are the sort of close that no one in the agency questions, played by Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender. They are glamorous, impeccably appointed, silky, smooth - in every sense, a team.
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CATE BLANCHETT: (As Kathryn Woodhouse) I can feel when you're watching me.
FASSBENDER: (As George Woodhouse) Sorry.
(SOUNDBITE OF ZIPPER ZIPPING)
BLANCHETT: (As Kathryn Woodhouse) I like it.
MONDELLO: Love won't keep George from tailing Kathryn, but there are other colleagues who might have leaked the project, so he's arranged a party.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACK BAG")
FASSBENDER: (As George Woodhouse) I understand this is not the casual dinner you'd prefer.
BLANCHETT: (As Kathryn Woodhouse) Yeah, it's an unusual group - data scraper, two agents and the in-house shrink. What are we hunting this time?
FASSBENDER: (As George Woodhouse) Severus.
BLANCHETT: (As Kathryn Woodhouse) And you think one of them took it?
FASSBENDER: (As George Woodhouse) Possibly.
BLANCHETT: (As Kathryn Woodhouse) Hm. It's been a while since we had a traitor to dinner, at least knowingly. I kind of thought you'd start with polygraphs.
FASSBENDER: (As George Woodhouse) I wanted to try something more elegant first.
BLANCHETT: (As Kathryn Woodhouse) What's on the menu?
FASSBENDER: (As George Woodhouse) Fun and games.
MONDELLO: Now, that line caught my ear.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACK BAG")
BLANCHETT: (As Kathryn Woodhouse) Will there be a mess to clean up?
FASSBENDER: (As George Woodhouse) With any luck.
MONDELLO: I'd read in the Hollywood Reporter that Steven Soderbergh thought it might be interesting if "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf" had been conceived as a spy thriller. "Fun And Games" is what that marriage-shredding play's first act is called, and one of the games the play's George proposes is Get the Guest. So once the intelligence agents arrive for dinner, game on.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACK BAG")
FASSBENDER: (As George Woodhouse) We go round the table, and each of us makes a resolution, the way you might at New Year. I resolve to quit smoking, for example. But we don't make the resolution for ourselves. We make it for the person to our right.
BLANCHETT: (As Kathryn Woodhouse) This is a new one.
FASSBENDER: (As George Woodhouse) Brand new.
MONDELLO: And it gets results - a steak knife-stabbing being the least of them. There are lots of twists, some involving action sequences, but the majority having to do with things left unsaid. Even in marriage, one does not ask about an assignment if it's secret, after all.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACK BAG")
FASSBENDER: (As George Woodhouse) Where are you off to?
BLANCHETT: (As Kathryn Woodhouse) Black bag.
MONDELLO: One goes to a data scraper...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACK BAG")
FASSBENDER: (As George Woodhouse) I need a satellite redirect, but this has to be unofficial.
MONDELLO: ...Because the stakes are higher here than in "Virginia Woolf"...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACK BAG")
MARISA ABELA: (As Clarissa Dubose) You are one naughty husband, George.
MONDELLO: ...Not just the fate of a marriage, but the fate of a world in the balance. Though, frankly, the marriage proves more interesting.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACK BAG")
FASSBENDER: (As George Woodhouse) I watch her. I assume she watches me. If she's in trouble, even of her own making, I will do everything in my power to extricate her.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) I mean, God, that's so hot.
MONDELLO: "Black Bag," on the other hand, is deliberately cool. Soderbergh and screenwriter David Koepp have made it a chilly thriller for adults, not about guns and stunt work but about verbal fireworks and maybe just a touch of icy backstabbing - the kind that suggests you've been keeping a lot in reserve, hidden away in a black bag.
I'm Bob Mondello.
(SOUNDBITE OF HEART BEATING) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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