Here’s a fun premise that would likely get you killed in real life. But, hey, fun premise, amIright? Not every film has a fun premise. In fact, most don’t. I mean, like, Gandhi? How fun was that? Schindler’s List? Seriously. Not fun at all. Deep Cover has great premise that involves actors infiltrating the mob using improv. See? That just sounds fun, right?
Yes, and … ?
Struggling American comedian Kat (Bryce Dallas Howard) teaches an improv class in London. It attracts a number of people disillusioned and/or depressed with their personal milieu. This includes failed actor Marlon (Orlando Bloom) and underwhelmed IT guy Hugh (Nick Mohammed). Ok, we have our players: three people of various talents who hate their lives.
Meanwhile, the police are in need of “common” people to make busts. Hey, you guys aren’t doing anything useful; want to earn a buck or two infiltrating a fake cigarette scheme? And, well, isn’t this always the case? While investigating, the trio improvise a bunch and stumble into drug-dealing middle management. Uh oh.
Huh. This is where Vinnie Jones usually shows up in a film like this. “Vinnie? Vinnie? Anyone?”
“We haven’t got Vinnie Jones. We’ve got Ian McShane. Will he do?”
“I guess he’ll have to.”
“We do have Paddy Considine as the mid-level dealer.”
“OK, now you’re talking.”
The big joke here is that these three who know equally as much about drug dealing and mob enforcement as I do have to improvise their way 
out of trouble. Oh, and Hugh really sucks at improv. So, there’s that. As I said above; in real life, these guys would die. And they’d die ugly. One would expect to find parts of them distributed over many barrels buried in the sand.
Luckily, this isn’t that kind of movie.
Deep Cover is unrealistic, but slightly more enjoyable than unrealistic. And I still don’t think Bryce Dallas Howard got her due for Argylle, so I’m giving this film a mild pass. Mind you, you’re gonna watch it, smile twice, forget it ever happened, and never talk about it. You’ll probably be asked years in the future if you ever watched a movie about undercover improv comedians. You’ll probably say “no” and when confronted, you’ll make up an excuse to cover for the fact that this sad little film, while likable, isn’t terribly memorable. Then you’ll push the conversation in another direction. Maybe vampires.
Yes, and … ?
There once lived an extemp queen named Kat
Whose career had taken a nose dive and splat!
But she got her big break
Undercover as a fake
Now the underworld thinks she’s all that
Rated R, 100 Minutes
Director: Tom Kingsley
Writer: Derek Connolly, Colin Trevorrow, Ben Ashenden
Genre: Fun things that will never happen
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Improv people
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Gangsters
