Black Doves (Netflix) - Review

Rating: 4 out of 5

AS crowded as the spy genre is right now (see also Slow Horses, The Agency and The Night Agent), you can’t beat a good yarn when done properly.

Black Doves offered a gleefully violent, sharply plotted tale that somehow felt fresh despite trading on a lot of familiar elements.

For starters, the casting was innovative. Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw aren’t names usually associated with violent excess. Here, they got to kick-ass and reset expectations of what they can do.

The Christmas setting also tipped its hat to the more seasonal subversion of films like Die Hard and anything written by Shane Black. London looked lovely, lit up like a festive (and travel agents’) dream, yet provided the backdrop for gun battles, knife fights, torture and all manner of betrayal.

And in an age where distrust in authority has arguably reached an all-time high (possibly fuelling the current demand for this genre), this fanned the flames of the current mood by unfurling a plot high on distrust and dubious dealings between top tier countries such as England, America and China.

Knightley played Helen, the wife of a senior government minister (Andrew Buchan), who is also one of the black doves of the title: a covert operative who spies on the powerful in order to let her agency sell secrets to the highest bidder.

She’s also having an affair with a man (Andrew Koji), whose murder - along with two other targets - sets in motion a chain of events that threaten to not only expose the doves but plunge Britain into a potential conflict with China.

Helen vows to extract bloody revenge on whoever killed her lover but also finds herself a target, prompting her ice cold boss (Sarah Lancashire) to place her under the protection of an old colleague, assassin Sam (Whishaw), himself harbouring regret for past deeds that cost him a relationship with the love of his life.

Joe (Girl/Haji) Barton’s script is composed of a lot of moving parts but skilfully manages to remain fleet-footed enough to provide an enthralling mystery that doesn’t get too bogged down in needless exposition or contrived melodrama. In some ways, it’s gleefully tacky - by way of it’s sometimes borderline excessive violence or the dark humour infusing it.

But it’s also intelligent enough to keep its secrets well hidden and twists inventive and surprising - the motivations and loyalties of certain characters being kept deliberately vague throughout.

Knightley obviously relishes the opportunity to play largely against type, combining a toughness and ruthlessness befitting her job as well as a wounded, almost soulful hurt at the way her life has turned out. This is mirrored by Whishaw’s Sam - an expert killer but one with a heart that’s too often broken or exploited whenever he lets his guard down.

These are very much too damaged characters pining for some kind of domestic normality - something that proves more and more elusive as London’s criminal fraternity threaten all they hold dear.

Of the wider cast, Lancashire is also a suitably steely presence - a shadowy operator capable of selling anyone out, while Ella Lily Hyland brings a lot of subversive comedy to her role as another assassin, with a penchant for delivering great sarcasm midst gun battle or life and death struggle.

Buchan is also good value as Helen’s husband, as is Omari Douglas as Sam’s one-time lover - and the one person he would be prepared to give up a life of killing for (if only his employers and his enemies would let him).

Elsewhere, there’s a rogues gallery of villains, some of whom seem to think they’re channelling the gangster chic of Guy Ritchie; others content to do the diabolical politician bit that errs more towards John Le Carre.

But here, too, Black Doves enjoys referencing or tipping its hat to other genre entries, while then cheekily subverting them and doing its own thing.

Each of the six episodes subsequently flies by, mixing well choreographed set pieces with character back story and political intrigue, culminating in a climactic episode that’s exciting, satisfying and open ended enough to both tie up the main story and float the possibility of more adventures to follow. On this sort of form, a second season would feel like a welcome gift.