'Black Bag' review: Movie eavesdrops on the sharp dialogue of secret agents who couple up

We sometimes hear rumors of discord on a movie set , but it sure seems like the cast of Steven Soderbergh’s slick and thoroughly entertaining espionage chess match “Black Bag” had a great time. This is a movie made by and starring artists who clearly love the genre, and aside from the technology, one could see this playing in theaters and pleasing crowds in the 1970s.

I’m not going to pretend I always knew exactly what everyone was talking about as we plunged ever deeper into the weeds of double-crossing and triple-crossing among a batch of mostly iniquitous secret agents, but it’s a zippy and darkly funny ride every step of the way. The dialogue jumps off the page, and the performances are universally brilliant.

As we’ve seen in the movie and TV versions of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” as well as the recent Netflix action comedy “Back in Action,” spies sometimes have a tendency to couple up. That situation is addressed head-on in “Black Bag” when one operative laments that you can’t date anyone outside of the business because they won’t understand what you do for a living — but when you’re with a fellow undercover agent, you never know if you can trust them given that you both lie for a living.

Still and against all odds, Michael Fassbender’s George Woodhouse and Cate Blanchett’s Kathryn St. Jean have enjoyed a faithful and loving marriage for years, even though they both work for Britain’s National Cyber Security Center, and one or the other frequently leaves for days at a time, with only the explanation that it’s another “Black Bag” operation. (Their sexy and witty dynamic is very Nick and Nora Charles.)

When George suspects there’s a traitor within the agency, a colleague hands him a list of five suspects — and Kathryn is among them. He finds that unfathomable, and when George and Kathryn host a dinner party for a group of colleagues, with George doing the cooking, he tells Kathryn to “avoid the chana masala,” because he’s going to sprinkle it with a dash of truth serum to see if he can suss out the fiend. (The spy thriller plot isn’t the point of “Black Bag”; this is all about relationships, and whether you can truly and fully trust another human being, even when your cold calculating side tells you to tread lightly.)

With director and camera operator Soderbergh lighting the film like a Richard Curtis rom-com — all candles and warm glowing light — George and Kathryn welcome the four other suspects on the list to their spacious, Architectural Digest-friendly home. Marisa Albela’s Clarisse Dubose is a surveillance specialist who has a thing for older men due to some father-abandonment issues, and she’s currently involved in a spiky relationship with Tom Burke’s Freddie Smalls, a veteran operative with an abrasive personality. Regé-Jean Page’s James Stokes is a rising star in the agency with Bond-like charisma, though he’s involved in a possible conflict-of-interest relationship with Naomie Harris’ Zoe Vaughn, who is the psychologist for the bureau and thus knows everybody’s secrets. Well. At least some of their secrets. Who knows if they’re telling the truth when they meet with Zoe — or if Zoe is being honest with them.

The screenplay by the extraordinarily talented David Koepp (“Jurassic Park,” “Mission: Impossible,” “Panic Room”), who has recently collaborated with Soderbergh on the brilliantly spun small gems “Kimi” and “Presence,” affords everyone in this great cast the opportunity to spin some razor-sharp dialogue. It’s just a treat to soak it all in — and in addition to the co-leads, there’s the added value of Pierce Brosnan as the head of the agency, one Arthur Steiglitz, and yes, there’s a deliciously sly Bond reference baked into the script.

“Black Bag” has a few moments of violence and subterfuge, but this is not a Bond movie; it’s mostly about a group of highly intelligent and seriously warped people who spend their working days manipulating the cyber world, and their downtime drinking great wine and hooking up. (We also get maybe the best polygraph sequence I’ve ever seen.)

Fassbender, who played an assassin in David Fincher’s “The Killer” and a CIA operative in “The Agency,” can do this kind of role in his sleep, but there’s a certain low-key swagger to his performance, a certain brilliance in his eyes behind his oversized glasses, that makes him such a compelling presence. Meanwhile, Cate Blanchett is Cate Blanchett — incapable of giving a performance that is less than amazing, perfectly matched with Fassbender. I’m sure Soderbergh and Koepp have already moved on to other projects, but what I’d give to see George and Kathryn together again on the big screen.