Leave it to the multifaceted filmmaker Steven Soderbergh to make a thoughtful and pensive spy thriller that thrills while having something to say that is always bubbling beneath the surface. The director of Out of Sight, Sex, Lies, and Videotapes, and the Academy Award-winning film Traffic’s latest, Black Bag, is a sharp and engaging genre film with a license to thrill.

Black Bag explores power dynamics and existential themes in human relationships through a spy lens that is fun, sexy, and silky smooth—a thinking person’s popcorn film that has the common courtesy of allowing the viewer to catch up with the script, teaching up, not down, and never patronizing.

This is easily being Soderbergh’s most accessible movie since Ocean’s Eleven.

RelatedKinda Pregnant Review — Schumer’s Netflix Comedy is Brutally Unfunny and Misguided Black Bag Review and Synopsis

Working with a script from David Koepp (Spider-Man), Black Bag follows a married couple,...