Spy flicks don’t come much sleeker, sexier or smarter than this one.
Director Steven Soderbergh and writer David Koepp have concocted a tightly plotted, British-based thriller that unfolds over the course of a single week. The execution is mesmerizing, the well-sculpted characters persuasively played by a top-flight cast.
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| George (Michael Fassbender, left) and Freddie (Tom Burke, center) seethe quietly while their boss, Arthur (Pierce Brosnan) demands a quick result on the search for a mole known to have stolen a dangerous software cyber-worm. |
Soderbergh controls every aspect of this glossy slice of spyjinks, wearing additional hats as editor and cinematographer (the latter two under his not-at-all-secret aliases of, respectively, Mary Ann Bernard and Peter Andrews). As always, Soderberg loves long tracking shots, and this film opens with an impressive one.
Veteran intelligence officer George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender), an elite operative at Britain’s closely guarded National Cyber Security Unit (NCSC), is summoned to an off-site meeting by his boss, Philip Meacham (Gustaf Skarsgård). A dangerous top-secret software cyber-worm, code-named Severus, has been leaked: likely to Russian agents. Five of George’s colleagues are suspected, and one happens to be his wife, Kathryn (Cate Blanchett), a powerful and trusted NCSC agent.
She’s also George’s weakness: He’s unwaveringly devoted to her (and everybody at NCSC knows this).
He requests two weeks to conduct a thorough investigation.
“Thousands of people will die, if Severus gets into the wrong hands,” Meacham explains.
“Oh,” George replies. “One week, then.”
Koepp’s dialogue remains this crisp throughout, often with an undercurrent of dark humor.
Soderbergh then cuts to George at home, meticulously preparing an ambitious meal for a dinner party. His care and precision, with every little menu detail, mirror his similarly clinical and methodical mind: always thinking four or five moves ahead, like a master chess player. But he’s also fastidious: a few tiny splatters of gravy, on a shirt cuff, demands an immediate change of clothes.
He catches Kathryn in their bedroom, getting dressed for the gathering. As a couple, they’re elegant, erudite and obviously whip-smart. Their banter is flirty, but also wary; we wonder what they conceal from each other, out of professional necessity, and also — possibly — for personal reasons.
