Black Bag (15, 93 mins) 

Verdict: Short and slick 

On the last day of the Cheltenham horse-racing festival, here’s an equine expression to describe, or rather not describe, director Steven Soderbergh: the prolific fellow is anything but a one-trick pony.

His new film, Black Bag, is about spies. It is almost parodically glossy, mischievously tongue-in-cheek, and its A-list cast is led by Michael Fᴀssbender and Cate Blanchett.

By contrast, his last picture, Presence, was a low-budget but very effective supernatural thriller about a haunted house. And before that came Magic Mike’s Last Dance (2023), a brazen comedy about male strippers.

Black Bag is scripted by David Koepp, who also wrote Presence, as well as Jurᴀssic Park (1993), Mission: Impossible (1996) and Spider-Man (2002) among many other whoppers, so he’s no one-trick pony, either.

This film is rooted in the present day, with a bellicose Russia as the enemy and British spycraft led by drone, satellite and AI technology, yet there is a retro vibe that whisks us all the way back to the Sixties, propelled by a jazzy percussive soundtrack.

Moreover, Fᴀssbender’s portrayal of British spy George Woodhouse is plainly influenced by Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer: similar black-rimmed specs, and cooking skills that appear to honour The Ipcress File (1965).

It is almost parodically glossy, mischievously tongue-in-cheek, and its A-list cast is led by Michael Fᴀssbender (left) and Cate Blanchett (right)

Fᴀssbender’s portrayal of British spy George Woodhouse (pictured) is plainly influenced by Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer: similar black-rimmed specs, and cooking skills that appear to honour The Ipcress File (1965)

At the heart of all this are George and his wife Kathryn (Blanchett, pictured), also a spy. They love each other deeply but increasingly he suspects her of cheating, not romantically but professionally

For all its plot convolutions and opaque spying jargon, Black Bag’s premise is simple. Starting with the notion that spies have office relationships and affairs just like colleagues do in workplaces everywhere, it adds an intriguing twist: deception is their stock-in-trade, so how can any of them trust each other?

At the heart of all this are George and his wife Kathryn (Blanchett), also a spy. They love each other deeply but increasingly he suspects her of cheating, not romantically but professionally. 

At any rate, someone in their team appears to be selling secrets to the Russians, specifically a device known as Severus, which could bring about nuclear destruction and is Soderbergh’s version of one of Alfred Hitchcock’s famous MacGuffins, of no inherent importance except insofar as it nudges the narrative forward. 

Could the mole be Kathryn, or is it one of the others, played by Naomie Harris, Tom Burke, Marisa Abela and Rege-Jean Page? Incidentally, Page, star of the TV hit Bridgerton, has often been tipped as the next James Bond, but even if that has nothing to do with him being cast here, that’s surely not so of former 007 Pierce Brosnan, who plays the taciturn intelligence chief. 

Whatever, Soderbergh and Koepp have fun throughout with winks and nods towards other spy dramas.

As for the film’s тιтle, it’s a shorthand for secrecy. When these spies need to keep something hidden they cite the ‘black bag’.

Could the mole be Kathryn (left, played by Blanchett, with Fᴀssbender as George, right), or is it one of the others, played by Naomie Harris, Tom Burke, Marisa Abela and Rege-Jean Page?

Early on, in a bid to flush out the traitor, George invites everyone to dinner at his and Kathryn’s sumptuous London home (remuneration for spies has evidently sH๏τ up since Harry Palmer’s bedsit days) and laces the chana masala with a truth drug. Later, there is another such dinner, and both events are wildly eventful, with recriminations flying more because of Sєxual infidelities than betrayal of King and country – although there’s some of that too.

It’s all splendidly acted, smartly written and slickly directed (commendably, Soderbergh keeps it to a brisk 93 minutes) but a script can sometimes be too clever for its own good, and that’s where Black Bag falters. It’s an intelligent spy comedy, but by wearing its intelligence on its sleeve it overlooks one of the key rules of espionage: sleeves are for keeping things up, not on.

Opus (15, 103 mins) 

Verdict: Silly and miscast 

John Malkovich has plenty up his sleeve in Opus, a gory satirical thriller that would have a lot more punch if any of us could remotely believe in Malkovich, fine actor though he is, as a successful former pop star: one of the greatest music icons of the 1990s, affectionately known in his heyday as ‘The Wizard Of Wiggle’ and, erm, ‘The Bald Genius’.

His real name is Alfred Moretti and he disappeared from public view 30 years ago, but suddenly the seismic news breaks that he has made another album and is inviting a select band of journalists and industry folk to hear it at his secluded desert home, where they can also indulge his messiah complex. One of the writers, Ariel (played by Ayo Edebiri, from the TV show The Bear), quickly discerns that Moretti not only has a screw loose but might have sinister intentions. By then, alas, it’s too late. The gore has begun.

John Malkovich (pictured) has plenty up his sleeve in Opus, a gory satirical thriller that would have a lot more punch if any of us could remotely believe in Malkovich, fine actor though he is, as a successful former pop star

I was reminded strongly of The Menu (2022), with a musician replacing a chef as the object of veneration, only this film, by debutant writer-director Mark Anthony Green, is not nearly as good.

It makes some astute points about modern-day celebrity and the nature of fandom, but it’s mostly just silly and Malkovich is distractingly miscast. For starters, and despite a contrived line about Freddie Mercury, it’s quite inconceivable that an American pop idol of this magnitude would never have got his teeth fixed. Aptly enough, that’s one of many reasons why, as satire, Opus has no bite.

Take a deep breath for this diver’s gripping story 

Last Breath (12A, 93 mins) 

Last Breath is the extremely well-told true story of North Sea deep-sea diver Chris Lemons (Finn Cole) who in 2012, while repairing a gas pipeline, was separated from his colleagues and stranded on the sea bed with his oxygen running out fast.

I know the story well because I heard a Real Survival Stories podcast all about it on BBC Sounds, which I recommend to you… and not only (full disclosure here) because it was written by my son Joe.

Last Breath is the extremely well-told true story of North Sea deep-sea diver Chris Lemons (Finn Cole) who in 2012, while repairing a gas pipeline, was separated from his colleagues and stranded on the sea bed with his oxygen running out fast. Pictured: Woody Harrelson as Lemons’s diving mentor Duncan Allcock 

It’s an extraordinary tale, which was also the subject of an excellent 2019 documentary. Now the co-director of that film, Alex Parkinson, has dramatised it, with Woody Harrelson as Lemons’s diving mentor, Duncan Allcock.

The word ‘survival’ gives the game away – Lemons somehow stayed alive after being starved of oxygen for 29 minutes – but knowing that really doesn’t diminish the film’s tension. It’s gripping stuff.

The Rule Of Jenny Pen (15, 104 mins)  

So, in a different way, is The Rule Of Jenny Pen, set in a New Zealand care home where one elderly resident (a superb John Lithgow) uses his doll puppet, the тιтular Jenny Pen, to terrorise all the others – among them a cantankerous judge played by the equally brilliant Geoffrey Rush.

James Ashcroft’s film gets a bit overwrought at times, and you might want to give it a swerve if you have a relative in a care home, as I have, but it’s an acting masterclass all the same.

All films are in cinemas now.