BLACK BAG   (in theatres)

Stylishly slick.  Prescient, well-honed actors at their physical peak working under the direction of Steven Soderberg. Writer David Koepp’s sensationally written script sucks audiences into a whirlpool of deception, espionage, infidelity, monogamy, dizzying intrigue. It is a festering guessing game guaranteed to demand one’s keen concentration, its hair-raising pace sears with divine, glamorous deceit. A black bag  exists, but also is a metaphor for what a husband/wife team cannot discuss in the spy trade; what a pair they are, “George Woodhouse” (referencing le Carre’s  “George Smiley”) depicted by a refined, restrained Michael Fassbender and “Kathryn”,  lean, sinewy  Cate Blanchett, at the summit of her career; both spies employed by the British Intelligence Agency, where a “Benedict Arnold” is moored in their midst. George bordering on OCD and uxoriously devoted to his wife; their private moments seem staged, scripted, luscious looseness, dishevelment of intimacy, absent; looked as if they could be in the office, ten minutes after exiting the bedroom. He must unearth the traitor (Russia the perpetual antagonist) from five coworkers including his wife: Marissa Abela, “Clarissa”; Regé-Jean Page “Col. James Stokes; Naomie Harris, “Dr. Zoe Vaughan”; my favorite, Tom Burke, “Freddie Smalls”; their gilded IQs rest in a rarefied circle, infused with rancid toxicity. George, lethally programed, manipulates his “subjects” with pungent deftness; Kathryn, with charm and adroitness maneuvers the group into her web of cautionary, cagey insurrection.

“Black Bag” in approximately, 1h 33m, scores at the highest level of smart entertainment; its message is smothered in a faithful marriage in which each party if properly provoked, would kill for the other.

FOUR & ½ STARS!!!!

Peneflix