Black Bag (#660)


I saw three films over the weekend, and if I were giving out stars for merit, the three combined would earn one star.  Am I getting too negative?  Maybe, so I may cut back in my viewing habits and will try to develop a positive attitude. Don't count on it.  BLACK BAG, with two top performers in Pierce Brosnan and Cate Blanchette, was disappointing. From the previews I expected a rousing mystery adventure story. What I saw was a marathon talking contest with the subject matter as boring as the people reading their lines. Six people, all employed by the British government as intelligence officers are associates and also friends. One of them, Brosnan, is charged with discovering which of his associates, one of whom is his wife, is a double agent, and upon finding the culprit, to bump the bad one off. The nothingness of the conversations and the lack of any real action, enabled the filmmakers to turn a one hour and 33 minute film into a sleep inducing spectacle that felt like it was three hours long. So, of course, 81%  of critics and 86% of audiences gave Black Bag a thumbs up. Another example proving they don't make movies like they used to.  

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