Pick of the week
Black Doves
We begin in a pub, with Fairytale of New York playing. But soon, three brisk, businesslike killings puncture the mood: this espionage thriller won’t be observing festive niceties. Keira Knightley is enigmatic as Helen, a member of shady information-traders Black Doves. Helen has mixed business with pleasure to a dangerous degree and Ben Whishaw’s troubled assassin Sam has been sent to dig her out of a hole. However, Helen is married to a high-flying politician and, perhaps inevitably, is stealing state secrets – and it soon becomes clear that an apparently localised story has geopolitical ramifications. Never exactly shy of genre cliches but pacy, slick and nasty all the same.
Netflix, from Thursday 5 December
