BLACK BAG (R)
Nobody does it like Steven Soderbergh; nobody ever has and frankly, I doubt that nobody ever will. In argument for the most prolific filmmaker of his generation, Soderbergh transcends genre, style, and budget with his unique brand of weaponized competence and precision. He treats filmmaking as a craft worth devoting one’s life to perfecting and every time he thinks he’s reached his zenith he zags at the last second to find new worlds to conquer. Case in point, Soderbergh’s last ten years of filmmaking. After a self-imposed “retirement” from prestige filmmaking and Oscar glory, one that was quickly dispensed with when he returned to our grateful eyes and ears with the country fried heist picture “Logan Lucky,” the man has not stopped chugging along since; putting out multiple films a year in a fever pitch that is often hard to keep up with. In 2025 alone, the mere three months of it, our man has put out two incredibly different films; the first “Presence,” a first-person POV of a ghost’s life in a haunted house, and the most recent, a sexy spy thriller that holds more intrigue in a sidelong glance than most movies do in their full running time, “Black Bag.”
From a screenplay by legendary screenwriter David Koepp (“Jurassic Park,” “Panic Room,” “Spider-Man,” need I say more?) “Black Bag” focuses on the lives and lies of a select group of intelligence operatives in the UK, specifically the marriage between Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett, an absolute smoke show supernova of a power couple. Anyway, Fassbender is informed that there is a mole amongst the spies and the list of names has been narrowed down to five. One of those five is Blanchett. Left without much option, Fassbender is tasked with weeding out the mole with extreme prejudice and thus is thrust into the inner lives, and relationships, of people who lie for a living and know how to kill enemies with a powder. What he uncovers as he digs deeper into this viper’s nest is simple: everybody is lying, everybody is having sex with one another, and everybody is compromised. What more could you want from a night at the movies?
The spy machinations of “Black Bag” are entertaining, that is of no argument. While the ultimate conclusion to who is undermining who might be telegraphed to a degree, the journey to get there is so rife with bristling verbal tête-à-tête that the mystery is truly the least of one’s concerns. Case in point, the showstopper scenes of the film present themselves as a pair of dinner parties that Fassbender holds for the five suspected moles at his home. Each is a carefully calibrated yet delightfully lush showcase for five actors swimming in juicy dialogue and interpersonal intrigue. The first delicious dinner sequence went on for so long that I began to wonder (nay hope) that this was the entire movie, spy film a’la “My Dinner With Andre.” To my mild dismay, spy antics were in store. But worry not, the film’s finale climaxes quite spectacularly at that same dinner table and I was over the moon. There’s nothing quite as titillating as seeing some of the finest performers in the world reciting dialogue from one of our greatest living screenwriters and lensed by one of the greatest filmmakers of this or any time.
“Black Bag” is a gourmet meal for cinema fans, and I imagine a fantastic date night movie. So do yourself a favor, tie a napkin around your neck, check your wine for truth serum, and feast.
“Black Bag” is playing at The Broad Theater and Prytania Theatres at Canal Place.
BORDERLINE (R)
There’s something tangibly giddy about a screenwriter let loose on their own material for the first time. Writers, the originators of movies you love, rarely have the authorial power to keep their story’s vision pure from conception through release, with the intent and style of their screenplays often scrubbed to the nub as it ventures down the rigors of the film production pipeline. Suffice it to say, the movies we see in theaters are more often than not funhouse mirror versions of their original incarnation; sometimes for the better, often for not. Yet, in every screenwriter whose work has been ground through the system of corporate compromise, there is a desire to grab ahold of the reigns themselves to make something uniquely their own, something pure and weird and itchy at the edges. Screenwriter Jimmy Warden (“Cocaine Bear”) got his chance to do just that with “Borderline,” a wacky, bloody, tonally gonzo movie about love and obsession in the Hollywood Hills.
“Borderline” stars Ray Nicholson (“Smile 2” and son of Jack) as Paul, a big grinned lunatic whose romantic obsession has fixated upon the pop star at whose concert his girlfriend tragically died of a stroke. That pop star is Sofia, a pseudo-Madonna played by Samara Weaving (“Ready or Not,” “The Babysitter”), who has had run-ins with this stalker before, alongside her loyal bodyguard, Eric Dane (“Grey’s Anatomy”) who bears the scars to prove it. Though locked away in a mental institution after opening titles roll, it’s unsurprising to hear that Paul has grand designs for Sofia of the home invasion variety. How those designs manifest, however, are more in line with a “King of Comedy” scenario than a “Straw Dogs” one, and that distinction makes “Borderline” a fascinating curio and a real good time at the movies.
Audiences know that Samara Weaving is our finest living actor at portraying a rock in stormy, often bloody, waters. Last names aren’t the only applicable comparisons between her and Sigourney Weaver, one of our other greatest living actors. Especially for a film such as this, where the tone swings madly from slapstick to brutality to a full-throated rendition of an eighties power ballad, Weaving is the cool, sardonic center upon which the chaos can bounce off of in an increasingly inventive fashion. Case in point, take the scene where she and Paul’s psychotic personal assistant Penny (Alba Baptista nearly stealing the movie as the spiritual love child of Fabian from “Pulp Fiction” and Stripe The Gremlin) have to fight tooth and nail over a box of matches and a pack of lighter fluid. In lesser hands, this scene feels kitschy or overly staged; yet Weaving sells every punch, scratch, and (most interestingly) the fiery aftermath of bloody victory. Even in a movie as silly as this, there’s something poignant about seeing characters have honest reactions to witnessing death and horror firsthand. This humanity is Weaving’s superpower.
There’s another scene where Paul petrifies Weaving with a surprise hug from behind. While most of us, weaker-willed and jumpy, might scream and leap or flail in terror, Director Jimmy Warden holds on to Weaving’s stillness as a creeping dread fills the back hollows of her eyes and she realizes whose arms are wrapped around her. This moment grounds us with Weaving, assures us that she has the wiles to think and fight herself free, but lends the film a weight that feels personal and relatable in a visceral way. Not many movies feature a moment like this back to back with a long one-take shot of a man being murdered after performing a full Fred Astaire song and dance number, but such is the joy of a screenwriter given the green light to chase the stampeding herd of their own weirdness. In a world where the writer is the final word, anything goes and it’s a joy to behold.
A whimsical movie that holds the fine line of its tone at knifepoint throughout, “Borderline” is a kooky exercise and a delight. Jimmy Warden seems to pack every clever, cinematic, and hilarious idea he’s ever hoped to find on screen into one neatly packaged, nasty piece of work. Indulge yourself in the oddity, the madness, and the power ballads.
You’ll be glad you did.
“Borderline” is playing at Prytania Theatres at Canal Place.
