Tuesday, 29 July 2025

OUT NOW: Deep Cover (Tom Kingsley, 2025)

Three struggling improvisers (Bryce Dallas Howard, Orlando Bloom, Nick Mohammed) are hired by the police to infiltrate a gang on a drug buy.


It’s meant to be simple, but the trio find their improv skills only cause the situation to escalate.



Where have theatrical comedies gone?


Deep Cover was not on my radar - my brother brought it up and I thought he meant the Laurence Fishbourne movie. 


I went in with no expectations - the cast was not appealing and Colin Trevorrow's name in the credits did not help.


I do not think I have laughed this hard since Game Night.


I love comedy thrillers, but they are so few and far between.


They sound so easy - the bones of both genres are the same. 


It is hard to maintain stakes and laughs at the same time - one wrong move and it can come off too grim or too lightweight.


The cast is great.


Orlando Bloom is exceptionally wellcast - playing an actor who is struggling against his image as an empty dreamboat.


He is playing a character grasping for depth and gravitas - his inability to plumb the depths of the human soul is woefully, excruciatingly displayed. The way he keeps grabbing bits of business from the people around him (down to stealing Sean Bean’s accent) is a joke that just builds on itself.


Leaving him to his own devices is like leaving a child with a loaded gun. 


The film blends the tension to the escalation of the joke.


Another running bit is Hugh’s (Nick Mohammed) fumbling attraction to the villain’s henchwoman Shosh (Sonoya Mizuno).


Attraction between hero and villain is a trope I have often thought of with action movies, and here is a character who actually jumps at it.


This becomes another lit fuse when she becomes attracted to him, mistaking his bumbling exterior for the banality of evil.


A terrific film.


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