Written by Sam Clark
Certificate: 15
Running time: 99 minutes
Director: Tom Kinglsey
For most of the time, I am hesitant and trepidatious about straight to streaming films that I have seen or heard nothing about, although they are never as widely marketed as multiplex releases are anyway. As I sat down to watch ''Deep Cover'', I thought this would be nothing more than a 90 minute distraction that I would forget about in a week, and to some extent it is, but I would be lying if I said that I did not laugh and chuckle along the way and enjoyed myself more than I thought I would.
This is brought to us from the writing team behind the most recent ''Jurassic World'' films, which is where Bryce Dallas Howard comes in, and directed by Tom Kingsley making his feature debut. Howard stars as ''Kat'', an aspiring actress and improv instructor in London, who is recruited for an undercover police assignment along with her students ''Marlon'' (Orlando Bloom'') and ''Hugh'' (Nick Mohammed). Their mission is to infiltrate a counterfeit cigarette operation, but this task quickly spirals into something far more dangerous as they become entangled in a complex criminal underworld.
Image credit: IMDb / Peter Mountain / Amazon MGM
''Deep Cover'' is a simple case really. This proves that simplicity is often the best and makes for very relaxing viewing. Right from the beginning, it dawned on me that this is the exact kind of slapstick, comedy crime caper you'd get in the 70s/ 80s that all of the comic giants would have liked to have a go at. I think the likes of Steve Martin or Leslie Nielsen would have been right at home doing something like this, or others like them. ''Deep Cover'' knows that is has nothing to it and is really just a one trick pony and riding off a single idea, but it is surprising how much of it works and how much it's able to get away with. Orlando Bloom is the funniest as he plays a failing actor (whose only real role has been playing a knight in a cereal advert) who takes himself far too seriously and gets most of the laughs.
It does start of very unconvincingly but as the stakes are raised, so are the laughs. This offers you those embarrassing moments in which you have no idea how characters will get out of awkward situations, but end up being very entertaining in the process. What seems like a very thin concept does turn into something watchable. It is yet another one of those films in which you have big names, such as Ian McShane and Sean Bean, only appearing briefly but there to give the film gravitas and heft (and an easy payday for those two as well). I initially wasn't sure if the central three would have chemistry, but by around the half way point, I could see it was working. I did not expect to be smiling as much as I was by the end.
On Amazon Prime Video now
