Passport, check. Rental car, check. Two guns and a roll of duct tape? Hang on. In The Wedding Guest’s electric opening sequence, Dev Patel’s Jay journeys from London to Lahore with the slick, studied efficiency of a Bond or a Bourne (and a significantly more handsome head of hair). Director Michael Winterbottom offers few clues as to who this character is, where he is going or what he might do. Harry Escott’s threatening score hints that it won’t be anything good.

As demonstrated by Winterbottom’s many travelogues (including The Trip films), he has an eye for geographical detail; he makes the most of India and Pakistan’s roadside cafes, crowded train stations and neon-lit markets. As Jay puts it, India is the perfect place to get lost. Yet more than anything, this wiry thriller works as a homage to the neo-noir genre.

Jay has been paid to kidnap bride-to-be Samira (Radhika Apte). To reveal much more of the plot would be to spoil its revelations, but know that there’s sex, diamonds, fraud and murder. Patel excels as a smouldering, enigmatic antihero who gradually begins to drop his defences; Apte might be even better as the duplicitous femme fatale.