Seriously, Why Didn't More People See Michael Fassbender's Overlooked Spy Thriller? Actorsvaultpro

It’s no secret that Hollywood is currently undergoing a period of transition. With streaming supercharged during the pandemic years, studios are more reliant than ever on massive-budget, four-quadrant movies that can make nearly a billion dollars and still be considered disappointments. In this environment, a mid-budget, small-scale film has an even harder time breaking out, particularly if it’s not tied into some preexisting IP.

Such was the case with Black Bag, Steven Soderbergh’s spy thriller starring Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett as a pair of married spies dealing with a traitor in their midst. Made for a relatively modest (by Hollywood standards, anyway) budget of $50 million, the film fell somewhat short in theaters, bringing in about $43 million by the end of its run. It’s done well on streaming, first on Peacock and now on Prime Video, which is a good thing, because it means more people are watching one of the best movies of the year.

What Makes ‘Black Bag’ So Good, Anyway?

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Black Bag is an espionage thriller, but it’s a quieter, more cerebral kind than the average 007 film. It’s largely a series of cat-and-mouse scenes, as George Woodhouse (Fassbender) tries to figure out which of his National Cyber Security Center colleagues may be attempting to get a very dangerous bioweapon into enemy hands. The suspects include case officer Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke), his girlfriend and satellite specialist Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela), counterintelligence officer James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page), staff psychiatrist Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris), and George’s wife and fellow officer Kathryn St. Jean (Blanchett).

The setup is fairly straightforward, and the film introduces a ticking clock element early on when George is given one week to identify the mole. Much of George’s investigation unfolds in subtext, as he calculates the reactions of each suspect, all of whom are aware they’re under suspicion. It’s a film with a lot of dialogue, so it’s a good thing that the script is written by David Koepp, one of the best screenwriters in the business who has written everything from Jurassic Park to Spider-Man to Soderbergh’s Kimi and Presence.

For a movie with very little action, Black Bag is incredibly tense and propulsive, as new wrinkles are introduced that complicate George’s mission, like when Kathryn appears on satellite imagery meeting with a Russian dissident. The scene where George and Clarissa briefly redirect the satellite feed to protect Kathryn wrings a surprising dose of suspense from what amounts to people looking at screens, but that’s the magic of Soderbergh and Koepp’s approach.

Soderbergh almost always serves as his own cinematographer, and he shoots the film in a confident but unobtrusive way. His camera glides smoothly around, tracking the characters and their relation to each other while taking in every inch of George and Kathryn’s carefully crafted world. Many critics have singled out the dinner scene from early in the film as one of the best scenes of the year, and it truly is a masterclass in building tension, made all the more remarkable by the fact that nobody moves for the duration of the lengthy sequence. The moment where the camera pans all the way around the table, moving in the same direction as George’s dinner game, taking in each of the suspects, shows Soderbergh’s quietly masterful command of his craft.

Why ‘Black Bag’ Underwhelmed in Theaters (and Why It Might Not Be a Big Deal)

Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender in Black Bag

So how did a movie with big stars like Blanchett and Fassbender, one that was rapturously received by critics, end up underperforming at the box office? It’s almost a cliché at this point to say that Hollywood (and audiences) no longer care about mid-budget, adult-oriented films that don’t rely on brand recognition or spectacle, but that seems too easy. It’s true that Black Bag was one of many such films that failed to grab an audience during its theatrical run (if it even got one), original movies with modest budgets can still pull in big numbers with the right combination of project and marketing.

For a recent example, Zach Cregger’s acclaimed horror movie Weapons was the number one movie at the box office for a couple of weeks, pulling in over $250 million on a $38 million budget. It’s obviously quite a different movie from Black Bag, and horror has its own built-in audience, but it shows that movies like these can ride a wave of positive buzz to financial success. Warner Bros. marketed Weapons quite aggressively, much more than Universal did for Black Bag (or at least it felt that way).

Luckily, Black Bag’s lukewarm box office may not have affected it as much as one might think. The film continues to find an audience on streaming platforms, and critics have continued to defend it as the brilliant work that it is, hopefully giving it the kind of staying power that even more successful movies don’t always have. While the film might turn out all right in the long run, it’s still a shame that such an excellent piece of movie-making craft didn’t command a big audience on the big screen. Black Bag is streaming on Prime Video.