Fun little espionage thriller! The kind of dialogue-first adult cinematic drama they don’t make much of anymore! Very enjoyable.
Also the first piece of popular media I’ve ever seen that deals with the war in Ukraine, which was interesting to see.
Extremely invested in the concept of heterosexual monogamy in a way that is somewhat perplexing. Using a spy thriller as the staging grounds for these concerns (what does it take to trust each other in love and resist the urge to cheat?) has a flaw, which is that the kind of people who become intelligence agents are already habitual liars with dubious morality and not a representative sample of the public.
Utopia (2014) an obvious touchstone in terms of contemporary British spy/conspiracy thrillers, but Black Bag is fundamentally more glamorous and less cynical. There’s some Bourne in here, but just a little. Very little Bond (despite charming Brosnan performance in a minor role.)
Vision of espionage as being about a) soft skills and b) computers.