Helen embarks on a passionate affair with a man who has no idea what her secret identity is. When her lover falls victim to London’s dangerous criminal underworld, Helen’s employers call on Sam to protect her. Bingo, the owner of the guitar shop where Sam gets his guns, is played by Rat Scabies, a member of the band The Damned.. Appeared on The Graham Norton Show: Cher/Keira Knightley/Michael Fassbender/Josh Brolin/Jalen Ngonda (2024). A Tale of New YorkWritten by Jem Finer, Shane MacGowan Performed by The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl. STAR RATING: ***** Excellent **** Very Good *** Good ** Poor * Terrible’Helen Webb’ (Keira Knightley) lives with her husband Wallace (Andrew Buchan), the Secretary of Defense, and their two children. Everything seems idyllic until her former boss Reed (Sarah Lancashire) returns to her life to reveal that her secret lover Jason (Andrew Koji) has been murdered along with two other people, prompting her to resurrect her former life as a secret spy on a path of revenge. Reed, along with Sam (Ben Whishaw), an assassin and her former trainer, navigate a complex web of political espionage and assassination. The spy thriller has waned in popularity over the years, but one that still has the potential to work in new and different formats. Black Doves came out of nowhere, with a huge advertising campaign, and became the latest big Netflix production to top the charts in a bid to revive the genre in modern times. The result is a truly mixed bag that keeps your attention throughout its pleasantly concise eight episodes, but certainly can’t hide the unevenness of the script. Overall, it’s a pretty standard spy story with some pretty standard cloak-and-dagger clichés that anyone familiar with the old-school spy capers will recognize and even embrace with gusto. The big problem is the uneven tone. The script bounces around between tongue-in-cheek action comedy and dark, heavy spy thriller, leaving you too wrapped up in it to really get into it. But it makes up for it with some stylish, sharp action sequences with Whishaw and Knightley creating a convincing pair of mismatched professionals, supported strongly by Lancashire as the icy, detached M-type commander. The spy thriller remains one with endless possibilities, and Black Doves, despite its flaws, is a strong addition to the main cast, with an interesting mystery at its heart, and some strong performances and action. ***