Sometimes there’s no doubt that less is actually more…

In the newest effort from director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter David Koepp is the effortless sexy spy thriller Black Bag that reminds audiences you can actually generate suspense and tension by simply using words rather than all those other ones in the cinematic playbook.

Black Bag is about legendary intelligence agents George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) and his beloved wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett). When she is suspected of betraying the nation, George faces the ultimate test – loyalty to his marriage or his country.

This is pretty much the kind of movie that Soderbergh can do in his sleep as he borrows beats from some of his previous efforts to make something that manages to play lightly but never betray the seriousness of the premise.

Yeah it’s a sexy spy thriller but it’s still a spy thriller as Soderbergh effortlessly weaves through the halls of power in London and any other good looking location he can think of.  In a movie that is so driven by Koepp’s words, we never get a moment that skimps on the style of it all and it all adds up a deliciously adult piece of cinema.  It actually all plays more like a relationship drama then a spy thriller because the stakes are weighted appropriately and never over blown.  In the spirit of many classic spy thrillers that have come before it; Black Bag is more than anything a film about fragility and human weakness which is why he needed such brilliant work from his leads.

Fassbender reunites with Soderbergh once again and here he gives us that sly, professional who navigates in and out of a world of liars and deception with not only ease but also a wry simile curling up from the sides of his face.  He really is the perfect character actor for movies like this because it’s less about him portraying some kind of archetype or political ideal and more about peeling away the onion layers of a real character that he can sink his teeth into.  He does that with aplomb here.

The radiant Cate Blanchett is fantastic opposite him and they both make the perfect sides of the coin in this cat and mouse game as George has the weigh the realities of what he cares about more; king and country and the woman he’s sharing his life with.  Admittedly Blanchett wears the stiff upper lip a little too much in this one for my liking but it works in the role.

Tom Burke, Rege-Jean Page, Naomie Harris and Pierce Brosnan round the ensemble well enough but it all never veers too far away from the prism that is Fassbender as he ultimately writes a new definition on the portrayal of the classic British ‘stiff upper lip’

Ultimately Black Bag actually plays a little slighter then may people will expect it too but that’s why it works.  Going more in the vein of a sexy George Smiley adventure rather than a toned down Jason Bourne is something that works so well in the canon and is kind of what audiences needed.  A genuinely interesting piece of adult character driven cinema, rather than building to set pieces and spectacle with mediocre dialogue shoehorned in the middle of it all.  Soderbergh continues to make “adult popcorn” films….and I want more.