Presence (2024) & Black Bag (2025)
A double whammy by an unbeatable pair of creative talents working at the very top of their game.
You never know what Steven Soderbergh will try next....either a high profile, mega-budgeted all star, popcorn munchin' crowd pleaser or a way-off-the-beaten track, low budget, under-the-radar oddball indie....(usually photographed and edited by Soderbergh himself under assumed names.)
And you can normally depend on screenwriter David Koepp's name to show up on multiple sooper-dooper franchise blockbusters ("Mission Impossible", "Jurassic Park", the last few "Indiana Jones" entries).
Within the space of this year and last year, these extraordinary filmmakers took two well worn genres - the ghost story and the spy story - and worked all new wonders with them. Together, they re-shaped and refurbished tales of a haunted house and a world of backstabbing secret agents.
The result? A ghost story and a spy thriller like none you've ever seen.
These two films do have one thing in common. In bending and warping their genres in unheard of directions, they're both brilliantly entertaining.
Presence is entirely shot from the perspective of a ghost wandering aimlessly around an empty house.......until a new family moves in. For 84 minutes, we see and hear only what the ghost does.
A troubled, married couple (Lucy Liu, Chris Stullivan) arrive with their teen son and daughter (Eddy Maday, Callina Liang). Their own personal problems, rivalries and insecurities become heightened by the unseen entity always observing them,and sometimes manifesting itself in sudden disturbing ways.
Whatever it is, it seems to have an agenda......but what?
You can probably tell we're being deliberately coy about any more details here.....you need to enjoy them for yourselves. And if you're paying careful attention, the film drops an advance clue about the 'Say WHAT now?!', mind boggling twist that closes out things with a mixture of ironic satisfaction and heartbreaking tragedy.
For Black Bag, Soderbergh and Koepp lay out a twisting, turning drama of British spycraft, where absolutely no one is to be trusted.
A team of spies working in Cyber Security are supposedly good friends and dinner party companions. (Except their dinner together resembles a verbally vicious "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf", with their senior officer George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbinder) goading them into spilling their own personal hidden secrets.)
Someone among them has turned traitor and George is tasked with sniffing them out, even if it's his fellow spy and fiercely beloved wife Kathryn (Cate Blachette). The wicked fun here comes from the fact that his spy friends and colleagues are infinitely skilled liars due to the very nature of their business. With duplicity their stock and trade, they've no concept of truth either in their profession or their personal lives.
Twists abound here and the top-of-the-line cast spits out David Koepp's razor sharp dialogue with precise timing. They include Naomi Harris (Daniel Craig's Miss Moneypenny in his Bond films)....and holy silencers, Pierce Brosnan himself turns up as the aggravated cold-as-ice Head Spymaster. You don't want to miss the sight of Pierce lunching on a fresh fish that's still gasping for air.....
Be aware: this is no Bond, Bourne or Mission Impossible action spectacle......nobody hangs from buildings or airplanes. In Soderbergh and Koepp's universe of dark and dirty espionage, these agents most lethal weapons are their plotting minds. And that's why any two minutes of "Black Bag" is way more clever and exciting then the entire 170 minutes of 'Mission Impossible-The Final Reckoning'.
For "Presence" 4 stars (****). For "Black Bag" 5 stars (*****). Put both on your 'must' list.
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