Black Bag (2025) Review

Recently, I saw the trailer for Black Bag and decided that I had to watch it. It has an all star cast and looked like a cool spy thriller so I went to the cinema today and watched the film and here is my review. The premise of the film sees a secret agent come under suspicion of betrayal, her husband who is also a secret agent must decide what is more important - his marriage or the world. 

Main Character

Michael Fassbender plays George and Cate Blanchett plays Kathryn and I think they were great together in the film. Fassbender in particular gets plenty of time to develop his character and I really like how they made him interesting. Their relationship is interesting and they have this really great subtle chemistry together that makes them great together on screen. 

Supporting Characters

As mentioned this film has a great cast including Marisa Abela who plays Clarissa, she is probably the one we spend the most time with and I think she was pretty fascinating to watch on screen and she had a real presence especially around these other bigger name actors. 

The issue is that this film doesn't really care too much about its supporting cast and wastes all this talent on screen. Tom Burke, Rege-Jean Page, Naomi Harris and Pierce Brosnan are all in this film and are all good in terms of their performances but I didn't care about any of their characters. They are incredibly generic and due to other issues with the film we never get enough with them to truly care. 

Story

The best parts of the story is when the film focuses on the intense talking situations such as a couple of group dinners and a polygraph sequence that I really liked and that is due to some good dialogue and acting. But the actual premise of the film is overly convoluted and had me not really caring. No spoilers but I found the ending really predictable and because of the short runtime I never grew to fully care and I felt like the film needed to be longer in order to tell its story fully. 

Script

This film was written by David Koepp who is a great writer and there is some great dialogue here and some really intense scenes that are the best parts of the film. However, the films plot is all over the place and it feels like it was an afterthought compared to the dialogue. 

Style

The film looks great and possibly my favourite part of the film is the music. It all really delivered on making this film feel like a spy thriller and something that you don't see very often these days. But as I have mentioned a few times, this film barely hits 90 mins and it is just too short to make you fully buy into the story that is being told here. Also, if you saw the trailer and thought this would be an action thriller you will be disappointed as this is a film all about dialogue and mystery. 

Overall

Overall, Black Bag is an above average spy film. Some great acting and dialogue rise this up but it falls below expectations due to some generic storytelling and short runtime. Probably one to watch when it ends up on a streaming service but I wouldn't rush to the cinema for it. 

Rating - 6/10