Black Doves is good fun, but you have to turn off your normal antenna to enjoy it.
In that sense, it’s typical Christmas fare (perhaps Netflix even intended it so) in that there’s a lot of make believe.
Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw star and are fantastically good together.
Knightley plays a spy (Helen), albeit for a private intelligence agency and not the British government, while Whishaw plays an assassin (Sam) who works for the same company.
In a difficult to believe plot, Helen does as her employer insists and seduces a pillar of the British establishment who goes on to be defence secretary in the government.
She’s so deep into her character that she has two children with him. Now that’s commitment.
Her job is to pass state secrets, gleaned from her husband, to the intelligence agency which then sells them to the highest bidder, probably the Chinese.
She meets Sam not long after joining the company, which is fronted by the all-knowing spy master, Reed (Sarah Lancashire).
Sam is a bit of a dogsbody for Reed but progresses quickly to trigger man and they become firm firms.
Sam’s an unlikely assassin. He’s a gentle soul who has a notable mouth twitch under pressure and likes a glass of prosecco. Most importantly though, he’s dependable and is trusted by Reed.
The plot is built around the apparent murder/heroin overdose (respective opinions of the Chinese and British governments) of the Chinese ambassador to the UK and the disappearance of his daughter.
Helen meanwhile is distraught after the real love of her life (a work colleague of her husband) is murdered by another spy, a former SAS marksman. The two killings are linked to the death of the Chinese ambassador but viewers are not sure how.
Either way, Helen is determined to avenge the murder of her lover and convinces Sam to help her.
Sidenote here - where has Keira Knightley been since Covid? Black Doves gives her room to display her talent and she is captivating.
Set in a London after the police have apparently been defunded, Black Doves is full of shootings, beatings and stabbings among the crime and spy community.
There are bodies and blood everywhere and a police officer never seems to turn up.
It’s like a spoof Bourne Identity.
There’s some interesting side-characters and sub-plot to keep our attention.
Lenny (Kathryn Hunter) is the matriarch crime boss who’s sympathetic to Sam (he used to work for her) but would order him killed in a moment (he owes her one after his conscience got the better of him on a previous job for her).
Then there’s the pair of young, female, rival assassins who are written purely for laughs.
Some scenes are outstandingly unbelievable.
Sam’s first kill (ordered by Lenny) is of a man who has broken the underworld “code” and is sitting alone in a Chinese restaurant.
The mark turns out to be his father but that’s not even the most surprising thing about it.
Sam, a professional assassin, goes to the job in his own car, takes off his mask (motorbike helmet) as he leaves the restaurant and then pauses in his car outside the restaurant to make a phone call on his own mobile phone.
Yeah, not a police man to be seen.
It’s not going to win any awards, but Black Doves is pacey and engaging. The three leads (Knightley, Wishaw and Lancashire) are fantastic and it’ll work just perfectly with that Christmas bottle of wine you’ve been warming by the fire.
