Start the week with a film: In ‘Deep Cover', improv comedians are both joke and punchline

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6 hours ago

The premise is unusual, the actors are in form and the humour is superb. So even if the plot of Deep Cover is a stretch, it doesn't matter.
British director Tom Kingsley's film is about a comedy coach in London who infiltrates a criminal gang with two of her students. Detective Sergeant Graham (Sean Bean) believes that undercover operations fail because cops are poor performers. Rather than recruiting actual actors, Graham zeroes in on struggling improv teacher Kat (Bryce Dallas Howard), whose last stand-up gig was a decade ago.
Kat selects Marlon (Orlando Bloom), an aspiring actor who is stuck doing commercials, and IT company employee Hugh (Nick Mohammed) who joins Kat's class to better his poor social skills. The trio's first assignment escalates rapidly from routine fake cigarette bust to major drug racket expose.
Kat, Marlon and Hugh get involved with London underworld luminary Fly (Paddy Considine) and his enforcer Shosh (Sonoya Mizuno). The imposters' fear at being caught increases when Fly introduces them to his boss. Metcalfe (Ian McShane) smells a rat, and rightly so.
The movie, which is out on Prime Video, has no business succeeding, but it does. Tom Kingsley's controlled direction of a madcap script by Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly, Ben Ashenden and Alexander Owen puts impersonation on a spectrum of the kind of performance needed to make both fiction and survival possible.
Even earnest police detective Dawes (Ben Ashenden) and his deputy Beverly (Alexander Owen), who has watched far too many crime films, appear to be playacting. The three fakers get into one scrape after another, escaping each time by their ability to adapt to the situation.
The first rule of improv is to always say yes, Kat reminds the easily frightened Hugh. Marlon needs no such assurance. Marlon seizes the opportunity to unleash his inner Method actor, transforming himself into the meanest gangster London has ever seen.
The actors are fully in tune with the anything-goes material. Bryce Dallas Howard is a fine comedienne, well complemented by a hilariously hammy Orlando Bloom. There is sweetness tucked into the swagger, especially between Nick Mohammed and Sonoya Mizuno and whenever the always affable Paddy Considine is around.
Deep Cover keeps its tone light, never forgetting its ultimate goal – escapist enjoyment – while also suggesting a new direction for improv comedians when the bills start to pile up.
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