Whatever else you think of Black Site, at some point during its short running time you’re probably going to start wondering how it can be that the second-in-command at a black site doesn’t understand what its purpose is.
Black sites, for those who missed out on the early years of the 21st century, are – Wikipedia definition – “clandestine state-operated detention centers where prisoners who have not been charged with a crime are incarcerated without due process or court order, are often mistreated and murdered, and have no recourse to bail.”
Michelle Monaghan plays the official in question, Abby Trent. She’s a popular, driven, second-in-command at a black site run by the Five Eyes (US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand), the (Wikipedia again) “Anglosphere intelligence alliance”, plus Israel. Always cracking heads with subordinates over the correct treatment of detainees, Abby considers torture, beatings and cruel and unusual punishments off limits, which is not how her juniors see it. She, they reason quite rightly, is somehow missing the whole point of a black site.
This all becomes a second-order problem when Abby learns that an old foe is about to be delivered to the site. Hatchet, as he’s known, is not only a dangerous terrorist but was responsible for the death of Abby’s husband. What no one on the base realises is that Hatchet has engineered his own capture and removal to this black site, where he intends to escape his interrogators and something something something (never that clear, to be honest), en route laying waste to everyone he crosses.
The “this time it’s personal” angle means Black Site might be setting up a dilemma for Abby – how do her principles hold up when tested? But really this is more about blood and mayhem than ethics, death on a grand scale and cat-and-mouse action in the concrete tunnels of what looks like a bunker.
Why doesn’t the number two on a black site know what it’s for? Because Abby is a good guy and audiences need to stay emotionally onside. Does this drive a coach and horses through the entire premise of the film? It rather does, but, like the testing of Abby’s principles, none of that really matters because in its heart this is a meat-machine actioner, of the sort you used to find by the checkouts in small supermarkets – starring Seagal, Lundgren, Van Damme and so on. The set-up is just wallpaper and is not to be taken seriously.
The casting is interesting. A-list rejects, you’d be tempted to call them (in other words, very well paid actors who can can go about a relatively normal life without the bunsen burner of fame scorching everything). Monaghan was once Tom Cruise’s wife in a Mission: Impossible. Jason Clarke, who plays Hatchet, and gets decent roles in exhausted franchises (John Connor in Terminator: Genisys), support roles in blockbusters (Oppenheimer) and lead roles in films that do, you know, OK. And Jai Courtney, who looked like he was en route to Arnie/Sly stardom a few years ago, but somehow didn’t make it, or hasn’t yet made it, to be generous.
Monaghan is pretty good as Abby, giving off the air of a determined woman who rises to the occasion when tested and takes insubordination (from Courtney’s sexist soldier Miller) as just more of the shit women have to put up with. Her shoulders are particularly impressive – much gym work. Courtney is impressive too, sneering seeming to suit him. Talking of which, Clarke as the villain, is the opposite of what’s usually offered, saying very little and killing with minimal effort. A good bad guy – Clarke also produced the movie, so this is a deliberate (and welcome) move.
Director Sophia Banks has been tipped as a face to watch by Baz Luhrmann and does OK here, injecting energy and some pizzazz into a very familiar scenario. And the death does at least come in a variety pack – by scalpel, lump hammer and, a novelty, oven door.
Really, it’s quite effective considering the budget. In the end it’s the familiarity of it all – death in a variety of unpleasant ways in a darkish subterranean environment – that undermines it, all set to that bang-bang-bang soundtrack that anyone who lived through the 1980s has had enough of to last a lifetime.
Black Site – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
I am an Amazon affiliate
© Steve Morrissey 2026
