Burke, Tom (Actor)

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    ‘Black Bag’ Review: Blanchett v. Fassbender

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    The actors play a glamorous couple of spies in this latest sleek collaboration from the director Steven Soderbergh and the screenwriter David Koepp.“Black Bag” is the third movie written by David Koepp and directed by Steven Soderbergh that’s been released since 2022, and it’s a banger. It’s also sleek, witty and lean to the bone, a fizzy, engaging puzzler about beautiful spies doing the sort of extraordinary things that the rest of us only read about in novels and — if we’re lucky — watch onscreen. It’s nonsense, but the kind of glorious grown-up nonsense that critics like to say they (as in Hollywood) no longer make. That’s true to a great extent despite exceptions like Koepp and Soderbergh, even if they’re too playfully unorthodox to be prototypically Hollywood.The filmmakers’ latest duet stars Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender as Kathryn and George. Cozily and happily married, the couple lives in austere luxury in a townhouse in London, where they keep long, eventful hours working for a British intelligence agency, the (real) Government Communications Headquarters. As spies go, the two certainly look and speak their roles, or at least the fictional versions of them: They’re cunning, suave and as enigmatic as the title suggests. Unlike their famed counterpart James Bond (he’s at MI6), though, they put in serious face time at the office. Inside a glass tower, they watch and are watched in turn, tracking enemies and sometimes eliminating them.The setup involves an explosively dangerous threat in the form of malware called Severus, presumably named after the despotic Roman emperor. There appears to be a mole in the agency, and George is among a select few trying to identify the culprit. He has a list of five possible candidates, all of whom work in the agency’s power ranks. Among the suspects is — ta-da! — Kathryn. Because this isn’t a problem that George can take to a marriage counselor — even if one of the main characters is an agency shrink — he does what he’s trained to do: He spies on her. It gets tricky. It also gets funny and predictably violent, with some of the sharpest, nastiest scenes unfolding across a family dining-room table.Koepp and Soderbergh are virtuosos of genre, and “Black Bag” is right in their wheelhouse. Each has made a range of films (Koepp also directs), and they last collaborated on the ghost story “Presence,” which came out earlier this year. If the two excel at thrillers, it’s partly because, I imagine, high-stakes intrigues give filmmakers room to push norms to extremes and even ditch them. Koepp and Soderbergh’s “KIMI” (2022) is another tight genre piece that embraces and detonates conventions. Its myriad influences include films about trapped women as well as claustrophobic paranoid thrillers from the 1970s like “The Conversation” and “Three Days of the Condor,” reference points that also inform “Black Bag.”To judge from George’s chic glasses and turtlenecks, the filmmakers revisited some older Michael Caine movies, too. Fassbender doesn’t have Caine’s charms, and he’s less persuasive as a romantic foil. “Black Bag” has its share of intentionally outlandish moments, some giddily funny (there are more ticklish moments than thrills), but among the less convincing plot points is George and Kathryn’s oft-stated devotion to each other. Onscreen, Fassbender and especially Blanchett have an otherworldly quality that makes them reliably interesting to watch, but it’s one that can feel like a membrane separating them from more ordinary souls. They both draw you to them, but, unlike, say, Brad Pitt, they don’t necessarily invite you in.Whether these nagging doubts about George and Kathryn’s relationship are intentional, they work in a movie that teases you with secrets and weapons, border-crossing and misdirection, and is filled out with a note-perfect supporting cast that includes Regé-Jean Page, Naomie Harris, Tom Burke and Marisa Abela. Even as the story heats up and starts to get crowded, George remains the intrigue’s central question mark. He prowls into the movie like Henry Hill strolling into the nightclub in the famously long take in “Goodfellas,” a scene that slyly suggests that George isn’t to be trusted. He may be hot for Kathryn, but there’s something “bloodless and inhuman” about him, too, as Le Carré wrote of his famous spy, George Smiley.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      In ‘The Seagull,’ Cate Blanchett Outshines a Director’s Tired Tropes

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      Thanks to Blanchett’s charismatic turn as a fading actress, this new Chekhov adaptation in London hangs together in spite of Thomas Ostermeier’s antics.It is all too easy to be cynical when movie stars turn to theater — not least because, of late, they haven’t always been very good at it. In recent weeks, London’s stages have played host to several slightly iffy productions of classic plays featuring big-name screen actors: Sigourney Weaver in “The Tempest,” Rami Malek in “Oedipus,” and Brie Larson in “Elektra.” So when Cate Blanchett rolled into town for a new adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull,” at the Barbican Theater, a little trepidation could be forgiven.But Blanchett is different. Though she is best known for her film work, the Australian actress has graced the stage to acclaim throughout her career, playing lead roles in “Hedda Gabler” and “A Streetcar Named Desire.” And she is no stranger to Chekhov, having starred in the Sydney Theater Company’s “Uncle Vanya,” and the same company’s 2017 adaptation of “Platonov,” called “The Present.” She met her husband, the playwright Andrew Upton, while performing in a 1997 production of “The Seagull.”In this modern dress production of “The Seagull,” adapted by Duncan Macmillan and Thomas Ostermeier (“Who Killed My Father,” “Returning to Reims”), Blanchett plays Irina Arkadina, a famous older actress whose pathological self-obsession alienates her son, Konstantin Treplev (Kodi Smit-McPhee), to the point of despair. He’s a young writer struggling to find his voice, and disaffected with the risk-averse banality of the artistic mainstream. (“We need new voices, new perspectives, new forms!”)Arkadina’s lover, Alexander Trigorin (Tom Burke), is a successful author of middlebrow fiction who represents everything Konstantin wants to tear down. So when the older man effortlessly seduces Konstantin’s sweetheart, the aspiring actress Nina Zarechnaya (Emma Corrin), the blow is doubly crushing.Chekhov conceived Arkadina as a “foolish, mendacious, self-admiring egoist,” and Blanchett realizes this vision with exuberant brio from the moment she first appears onstage. Her Arkadina, wearing a purple jumpsuit and large sunglasses, channels the vapid can-do spirit of an online wellness influencer; inordinately proud of her well-preserved appearance, she tap dances and does splits to show off her litheness. She’s the life of the party — her diva-level prancing recalls Joanna Lumley’s Patsy in “Absolutely Fabulous” — but emotionally she’s withholding. When Konstantin puts on an avant-garde play, she dismisses it as “indulgent, adolescent crap.” Even in rare moments of tenderness her language is glib, cooingly manipulative. (“Poor little crumpet!”)Tom Burke, left, as Trigorin and Emma Corrin as Nina in this new adaptation of “The Seagull” at the Barbican in London.Marc BrennerWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      Watch an Ambush at the Bullet Farm in ‘Furiosa’

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      The director George Miller narrates a sequence from his film, featuring Anya Taylor-Joy and Tom Burke.In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.The following contains spoilers for “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.”A great action sequence may involve pyrotechnics, breakneck vehicle maneuvers and other dazzling stunts, but according to the director George Miller, it may prove hollow without a connection to, and between, the characters.He put a relationship front and center in this sequence from his latest tale in the Mad Max saga, the prequel “Furiosa.” Anya Taylor-Joy stars as the title character and Tom Burke is a driver named Praetorian Jack, with whom Furiosa builds a bond.In the scene, the pair approach the Bullet Farm to pick up munitions for a battle being waged between Immortan Joe and Dementus. But soon after they arrive and their War Rig passes through a portcullis, they are ambushed and they realize that Dementus has taken over the Bullet Farm.Taylor-Joy performs her own car stunt requiring her to spin the vehicle 180 degrees. And the sequence plays out in tense ways as both she and Praetorian Jack defend themselves. But narrating the scene, Miller defines the central purpose: “What follows is that through their actions, not their words and their promises to each other but through their actions, that they are prepared to give of themselves entirely to the other.”He continues, “In a way, it’s kind of a love story in the middle of an action scene.”Read the “Furiosa” review.Read an interview with Anya Taylor-Joy.Take a behind-the-scenes look at the War Rig from “Furiosa.”Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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      in Movies

      ‘True Things’ Review: Escape Routes

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      This character study from Harry Wootliff bottles the lightning of a torrid fling.Harry Wootliff’s “True Things” bottles the lightning of a torrid fling in its closely observed character study of Kate, a bored British social worker who feels stuck. Tom Burke plays a charming bloke, recently released from prison, who comes in for a benefits claim and ends up asking her out. “I will keep that in mind,” Kate (Ruth Wilson) responds, intrigued but trying not to smile.Wootliff and her superb leads fully inhabit what’s essentially an extended chapter in Kate’s life, at once pivotal and fleeting. She and her fellow have sex in a number of places; he earns a spot in her phone contacts as simply “Blond” because of his frosted hair. Kate gets attached, but (or is that because?) the man has a habit of disappearing. When he borrows her car for a week for unknown purposes, it seems to confirm the suspicions of Kate’s friend (a note-perfect Hayley Squires) that he’s a shady bounder.What makes the film’s episodic approach flow is the pulse-sensitive camerawork. It’s worth singling out, because it is the kind that is often described as “intimate” but rarely pulled off with such Maysles-esque aplomb. The cinematographer, Ashley Connor, knits together relations among bodies in space beautifully — and meaningfully — especially between Wilson and Burke, who exerts a similar hold here as his character in “The Souvenir” (in a different key and class).Wilson is able to bring a light touch to her teetering character, as we hold our breath and watch her face to see where Kate lands.True ThingsNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. In theater and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More