What to Watch Tonight: Litvinenko: Red Sparrow

Red Sparrow is on FilmFour tonight at 9pm.

Jennifer Lawrence stars in this dark action-thriller as a ballerina forced to join an elite force of Russian operatives know as Sparrows, trained to use any means necessary to complete the mission. Dominika Egorova (Lawrence) is a ballerina who looks after her sick mother. When a horrific on-stage accident leaves her unable to dance and, therefore, without an income, her uncle Vanya Egorov (Matthias Schoenaerts) steps in with evidence that it wasn’t an accident after all. Dominika returns to the Bolshoi and catches the dancer who has replaced her and the dancer who broke her leg in flagrante delicto. So, she bludgeons them both with her walking stick. Obviously, this could be very bad if your uncle didn’t work for the Russian government, but hers does.

So instead she is sent to spy on a man for State Security. This ‘mission’ goes spectacularly wrong. While the man is assaulting Dominika, a shadowy figure wearing biker leathers comes through the window and garrottes him. But apparently, she has done enough to warrant being recruited to the Sparrows, an elite unit of incredibly attractive agents who are willing to use any means necessary – but often sexual – to get what they, or rather the State, wants. Nice uncle, right? Once she’s trained in the art of seductive espionage, Dominika is sent on the trail of an American agent, Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton). But can her loyalty to the State be entirely relied upon, given how it was obtained?

Watch, record or stream it with a Humax set-top box.