REVIEW. BLACK BAG: James Bond for the Mensa Crowd, but in a good way.

The first time I entered writer-director Steven Soderbergh's fast-paced, upscale urban world was thirty-five years ago when I watched his first feature, the now iconic, then groundbreaking Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989). To be honest, I was probably the only one among my graduate school/teacher colleagues that liked the movie: most found it talky, dull, even offensive or, as one ex-partner put it, "an exercise in pretentious psychobabble."

But I loved it, captivated by newcomer actor James Spader's slyly innocent voyeurism and fascinated by the open dialogue about everything sexual, from fantasies and fetishes to foreplay. I thought Soderbergh was definitely a director to watch though, over the years, his projects have sometimes been a hit or miss for me. As mesmerizing as I found the repartee in Sex, Lies and Videotape, and the smart dialogue and quick-cut editing that became Soderbergh's signature in susequent films like Erin Brockovich, Out of Sight, The Limey and Traffic, I walked out of a 2002's Full Frontal after a thoroughly painful half-hour of meandering soliloquies and celebrity preening.

Promising a fascinating "a day in the life of Hollywood actors" which blurred line between reality and fantasy and boasted an A-list cast for that time, everyone from David Duchovny to Julia Roberts, Full Frontal was a hot mess of a snoozer. Fascinating is wasn't, and I left the theater using some of the same pejorative adjectives I'd heard my friends utter thirteen years earlier. PS Rotten Tomatoes gave it a score of 39. Not good.

To be sure, Soderbergh's career has had its ups (the Oceans Eleven franchise) and downs (Solaris) over the years. The once low-budget indie darling quickly moved to bigger budget filmmaking with well-known Hollywood stars, elevating actors like Julia Roberts and George Clooney in the process, but also calling into question his earlier risk-taking with taboo subjects and socio-economic dissonance. From 2013-2017, Soderbergh took a break from Hollywood, reportedly unsure of what his career had become and how/if he would continue filmmaking.

Since 2017, his productivity has been limited to one film project a year, and I'm happy to report that this year's submission is a triumphant return to form. With intelligent dialogue, an intricately engaging plot, and sharp, efficient editing, Black Bag brings Soderbergh back into his element, examining the psychological forces behind all things related to the highly sophisticated, eternally dangerous, sexually charged world of espionage.

Led by a superb cast that includes two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett and two-time Oscar nominee Michael Fassbinder as married intelligence officers Katherine St. Jean and George Woodhouse, who (unbeknownst to the other) are simultaneously investigating the sale and use of a nuclear drone program called Severus, Black Bag (the title refers to spy lingo for "Top Secret") is a thoroughly entertaining, thought-provoking look at British intelligence, the post-Cold War world, and the bonds of matrimony.

Early in the narrative, George's boss, Meacham (Gustaf Skarsgård) informs him that there is a traitor in the organization, and Katherine is one of the suspects. George quickly arranges a dinner party with Katherine (but without sharing that she's also under obsesrvation) to assess the other suspects: Freddie (Tom Burke), a managing agent and boyfriend to Clarissa (Marisa Abela), an operative specializing in satellite imagery, Zoe (Naomie Harris), the organization's psychaiatrist, and her boyfriend, another managing agent named James (Regé-Jean Page). Meacham tells George he has one week to identify the infidel, so George must work quietly and quickly.

Within hours, Meacham turns up dead of an apparent (and very suspicious) heart attack, and the plot (and George's anxiety) goes from there. To give away any more here might ruin the experience for those who haven't seen it, and I never intentionally ruin a movie experience by giving away unnecessary spoilers. Granted, I did once tell my college students that Mary Poppins was a communist, but that was only after they claimed she was a great "American" feminist, and I felt it necessary to share that the book's author, P.L. Travers had anti-capitalist tendencies. And since most of the students admitted they'd seen the movie (and loved it), I figured I wasn't really spoiling their original experience, merely challenging their perceptions of the character's intentions and the story's theme. But giving any more away here on Soderbergh's thriller would be cruel.

Suffice to say that Black Bag is well-worth your time, and not much of it. Coming in at a frugal ninety-four minutes, Soderbergh intensifies and maintains tension while being supremely efficient with dialogue, expository scenes, and character development.

Fassbinder's George may seen like the ultimate unsexy nerd, but watch his eyes as he surveys his colleagues, administers polygraphs, and obliges Katherine's sexual desires, and you'll see a man passionate about his work and devoted to his spouse. George's apparent (appropriate?) OCD is developed with the tiniest details: while preparing dinner for his intelligence colleagues, George notices a few spots of wine on his shirt cuff and quickly excuses himself to change to a clean (re: spotless) one. Katherine's affection for expensive clothes is shown subtly as she puts the finishing touches on a blouse or negligee.

It's all very enticing stuff, and Soderbergh tops off the clever, precise performances with brilliantly effective camera work. I wish RaMell Ross had used more of cinematographer Peter Andrews's technique when developing a first-person perspective in last year's haunting Best Picture nominee Nickel Boys. Here, we are often following George, sitting on his shoulder and even getting inside his head a bit before Andrews pulls the camera back and let's us observe the bigger view of what's going on. It is minimalist set design maximized by an ever-moving lens, allowing visuals that create layers of intrigue, suggesting metaphors beyond the immediate storyline, and setting the stage for a thoroughly satisfying climax and denouement.

Black Bag is currently in theaters, but likely won't last long. It's spring, remember, and that unfortunate slow patch between the Oscars and summer blockbusters. Too bad. Black Bag is intimate enough that it might play well on a home screen, but it's big and bold enough that it deserves a big screen experience and more marketing dollars. Catch it, if you can, before it heads to streaming. But if you can't, then check it out in whatever modality works for you.

David Koeff's smartly written original screenplay will have you talking about its many fine points longer than movie's running time, and not just about British intelligence and Pierce Brosnan's (a former James Bond) appearance as an intelligence officer who's more of a heavy than a hero. The dialogue is sharp, witty, sometimes bitingly funny. The plot has plenty of twists and turns that might at first seem overwhelming, but ultimately prove reasonable and fulfilling.

There are other complexities here, too, deeper psychological hints at what makes us all tick, where the violence is more cerebral than physical. By the time Katherine tells her colleagues, "Don't ever try to fuck with our marriage again," you may need to rewind and decipher all the glorious clues you missed.

Black Bag is currently in limited theatrical release and rated R for language and fleeting violence.