Black Bag

There are two types of spy films. Bracket them into ‘Ian Fleming vs. John Le Carre’ if you will; the all-action, in the field, slightly unrealistic action spies vs the more cerebral, realistic, office-based espionage.

Despite featuring actual Bond alumni (Pierce Brosnan, Naomie Harris) and some bookies' favourite potential future Bonds (Michael Fassbender, Rege Jean-Page) the new film from Steven Soderbergh: Black Bag falls into the latter camp.

Nothing wrong with that at all. And, as you’d expect from Soderbergh and writer David Koepp, this is a concise, slick, stylish and smart spy thriller.

However, as can be the case with certain films of this type, the machinations of its plot and the intricacies of its execution are just a little bit too complicated.

It strikes as a film that knows it's smart and isn’t prepared to offer a helping hand to the viewer. I’m sure there are some spy fans who will lap this up but for the average audience it’s all just a little bit too hard to follow, a little too unnecessarily convoluted and the denouement might raise more shrugs than gasps.

Getting to that denouement is mostly fun though. The slightly hazy, almost 1970’s styled cinematography, the costume design and the zippy dialogue can enrapture at points.

The stacked cast hit their marks and the runtime is kept down to a brisk hour and a half.

The lack of action set pieces feels mature and refreshing and an early dinner party scene is rapt with tension.

However, as aforementioned, the plot just wraps itself in knots a little too much and some of the points of the plan fall into the ‘awfully convenient and far-fetched’ category.

Perhaps one that may work better on the page than the screen, Black Bag is nonetheless perfect spy mystery fodder for those inclined but possibly a little too dense for the majority.

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