We watched Black Doves on Netflix. Since it’s a standard modern action thriller, I suppose we have to expect all the usual implausibilties and impossibilities: in gunfights the good guys never miss, and the bad guys never hit; safes can be opened in seconds just by placing a little electronic gizmo on them; all computer tech works perfectly, every time; the American embassy’s surveillance cameras can be accessed and blocked by a hacker with two minutes’ notice; etc., etc.
(I often wonder if a show that didn’t contain any of these ludicrous plot devices, and was entirely, or at least mostly, realistic, would be as bad as Hollywood seems to think.)
But what bothered me most about the show was the two main characters, and the fact that we’re supposed to sympathize with them. I’ll spoiler much of what follows, but I don’t think I’m revealing anything this isn’t shown within the first few minutes of the first episode when I say that Helen (Keira Knightley) is a spy and Sam (Ben Whishaw) is a hit man.
The show spends a lot of time establishing the emotional connections these two have with other people, Sam to his ex-lover, Helen to her children and murdered lover, and to her husband, sort of. But at the end of the day, Helen married a top British official who doesn’t know that she is passing government secrets to a shady private spy agency, and Sam is a contract killer who has murdered many people. Oh, yes, Helen is a murderer, too.
Helen is motivated by revenge for the death of her lover, and Sam asserts that the world is better off without the people he has killed, but are these good enough reasons for us as viewers to excuse all the crimes they commit? They are portrayed as charming and loving with their loved ones, but cold and brutal with their enemies. Indeed, the dual nature of their personalities, and their efforts to reconcile them, is the key dramatic turning point in the whole story.
ISTM that action thrillers rarely deal with such issues, and with good reason. James Bond doesn’t have a wife and children to worry about. That, and the fact he’s working for “our side,” is why we can root for him despite his tendency toward violence.
But this show seems to say that if you’re a nice person, and some people love you, and you love them, it’s okay if you seduce someone, marry him and have kids with him, all on behalf of an organization that sells the information you’re stealing to the highest bidder, regardless of ideology.
Knightley and Whishaw make their “Dr. Jekyll” sides appear charming and charismatic. They are not presented as anti-heroes doing whatever they must to survive in an evil world. Or as Tony Soprano-like characters, who we are clearly supposed to condemn and feel morally superior to. The show wants us to like them and feel that they are justified. But to the extent we do so, we are complicit in their crimes.
I resent the show for trying to make me like and sympathize with characters who are, basically, despicable people.