Black Bag invites audiences into a world full of secrets and intrigue as a British Intelligence officer races to find the traitor in his organization.
Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, and Pierce Brosnan are just some of the names in Steven Soderbergh's newest spy thriller, which has been met with positive reviews.
Black Bag Movie: Plot & Spoiler Recap
The Severus Leak and Dinner Party
Black Bag follows the British Intelligence agents and married couple George (Fassbender) and Kathryn (Blanchett).
The title of the movie is a reference to the code word Black Bag, which the spies in the film use as a way to avoid divulging confidential or top-secret information.
Secrets and lies are a big metaphor that's explored throughout Black Bag, which begins when George is tasked by his superior, Meachum (Gustaf Skarsgard), with finding the culprit inside their organization who has leaked a top-secret and software known as Severus, which could result in the deaths of thousands of people.
George has five major suspects, the satellite specialist Clarissa (Marisa Abela) and her older boyfriend Freddie (Tom Burke), agency therapist Zoe (Venom: Let There Be Carnage's Naomie Harris), and her agent and boyfriend James. He also reluctantly adds his wife to the list of suspects.
George, who is adept at reading people and an expert interrogator (similar to Fassbender's character in The Killer), invites his colleagues over for dinner where he doses their food with truth serum and tasks them all with a game of giving the person to their right a resolution.
This devolves into chaos as Clarissa learns Freddie has been cheating on her and stabs him in the hand with a steak knife.
George Investigates Kathryn
With no clearer suspicions, George notices a ticket stub for a movie titled Dark Windows in the trash. He becomes suspicious of Kathryn and reassures her that she can confide in him as he will do anything for her, but she has nothing to tell.
The next morning George suggests they see Dark Windows at the theatre and Kathryn claims to have never heard of it. She agrees to see the movie and reveals she will be traveling for work later in the week, but can't tell him where.
At work, George learns of Meachum's death via a suspicious heart attack. He breaks into Kathryn's office and discovers she is traveling to Zurich.
James comes to George to warn him that Kathryn has access to a Swiss bank account containing £7 million of illicit funds, filed under a fake persona.
George blackmails Clarissa into helping him hijack a spy satellite to watch Kathryn, which they achieve during a scheduled handover period. George watches Kathryn meet with a Russian operative where she seemingly attempts to buy something.
Cat-and-mouse games spring up all over the organization as Clarissa confides in Freddie that George was behind the satellite misdirect, Zoe pries into Kathryn's private life during their session, Freddie warns Kathryn that George has been watching her, and Zoe breaks up with James.
It comes to a head when George is called into a meeting with his boss, Arthur Stieglitz (Brosnan), who reveals that the brief moment during which one of their satellites was offline was the moment that a dangerous Russian terrorist escaped their watch with a copy of Severus in hand. The only reason could be that they have a traitor in their midst.
It's revealed that Severus is a program that can initiate a reactor meltdown in any nuclear power plant around the world. And now it's in the hands of the Russians.
Kathryn and George Turn the Tables
George begins to suspect he's been set up and shares this with Kathryn who believes she has been as well. The two ally themselves and decide to disrupt their blackmailers' plans.
Kathryn uses Clarissa to pinpoint the Russian's location and then leaks it to the CIA who send a drone strike to stop them. Kathryn then takes this to Arthur, who she suspects leaked Severus to destabilize the government in Russia. His enraged reaction to learning this information confirms her suspicions.
Meanwhile, George puts James, Zoe, Clarissa, and Freddie, through a polygraph. He learns from each of them what they know about Severus as well as a few other pieces of the puzzle.
The Severus Leaker is Revealed
George and Kathryn invite the same guests around for a second dinner party. This time Kathryn leaves a loaded gun in the middle of the table as George reveals each guest's secrets.
The main reveal is that James is the agency worker who leaked the Severus program with encouragement from Arthur. It seems the two shared the idea that a nuclear reactor meltdown in Russia would destabilize the nation to the point it would cease its attacks on foreign countries and thus end the war.
James was able to successfully extricate the Severus software from British Intelligence by hiding it in a USB he carried on a soccer ball keychain. He then passed it on to the Russian terrorists to use against their own country in return for a million-dollar payment from the illicit Swiss bank account that James initially claimed Kathryn owned.
James and Arthur then organized to poison Meachum and plant clues to set up Kathryn and George in the hopes their investigations would lead them to turn on each other.
However, there is another twist in Black Bag which reveals a second plot was also in motion at the hands of Zoe and Freddie to try and stop the Severus leak by using Kathryn.
It's revealed that James accidentally divulged the Severus program to Zoe one night while he was drunk. Zoe's inherently religious sentiment meant she could not endorse the murder of so many people so she confided in Freddie.
Freddie was the one who suggested Kathryn meet up with the Russian informant in Switzerland to try and buy back the Severus program. Meanwhile, Clarissa had seemed suspicious due to her ability to deceive George's polygraph test, but in the end, she had no knowledge of Severus.
What Happens at the End of Black Bag?
After all this information is revealed at the dinner party, James grabs the gun off the table. He tries to shoot George but the gun is loaded with blanks.
James claims that George has no concrete proof of their misdemeanor, it's all based on conversation. Until George reveals a hidden camera has been recording his confession.
Kathryn then pulls out a real gun and shoots him. As Zoe, Clarissa, and Freddie were all pawns in the larger plan, they allow them to go free.
George takes James' body to the lake and dumps it from his fishing boat. Kathryn tells Arthur his plan failed and subtly threatens him to step down.
With the plot foiled and order restored, George and Kathryn's relationship remains as strong as ever. In the final moments, the couple contemplate using the funds from the secret Swiss bank account for themselves.
What Black Bag's Ending Means
For all the plot twists and turns that Black Bag entails, at its heart, Soderbergh (who has also mentored the Russo Brothers) is making a movie about the strength and trust between its central couple.
Frequently throughout the film Kathryn and George are framed as the golden couple. They are a pair of spies whose personal lives can survive the secrets and lies of their professional ones.
After the cracks in Clarissa and Freddie's relationship are put on display, Clarissa asks George how he and Kathryn remain so committed. George reveals it's built on mutual trust and commitment. He watches Kathryn and assumes that she watches him in return, but at the end of the day, he will do anything to protect her and so will she.
George is excellent at reading people, but Kathryn claims she will only ever lie to him if she has to. She also admits to Zoe during a therapy session that her marriage is her "professional weakness."
This is demonstrated by the end of the movie as George and Kathryn both lie to each other, but only for the other's protection. There is no limit to their loyalty, proving that their relationship can survive because they put their marriage above all else.
Black Bag is in cinemas now.
