Deep Cover
An inept trio of would-be comedians are sucked into London’s criminal underworld in a farce that pedals its slapstick a tad too broadly.
A school for stooges: Orlando Bloom, Bryce Dallas Howard and Nick Mohammed
Image courtesy of Amazon Media.
It’s not a bad premise. Three characters in search of a career change end up at an improv comedy venue (The Comedy Store) in London’s West End. Outside the theatre a poster beckons: ‘Find Your Voice! Build Confidence! Improv Comedy Class!” There are too many exclamation marks, but the 39-year-old comedian with an expiring work visa needs the money to fund her ten-year-in-the-works one-woman show. She is Kat (Bryce Dallas Howard), who is not stupid but is definitely desperate. She’s directing a scene with an intense, humourless De Niro wannabe called Marlon (Orlando Bloom) and a klutzy IT geek called Hugh (Nick Mohammed, Nate in Ted Lasso) who is anxious to make a friend, any friend. Because they’re supposedly good at improv and can think on their feet – and are dying for the money – they are signed up for £200 each by a cop (Sean Bean) to go undercover to shake up a drug dealer. In the event, they prove better at their task than anybody could have imagined and are sucked deeper and deeper into London’s underworld…
The film begins with a quote by F.L. Adamson taken from The Improv Guide: “Improv Comedy is like going into battle. If you want to kill, you have to be willing to die.” It’s a neat trick, but this sorry threesome is not disposed to die and are as inept as The Three Stooges. Marlon just gets more and more Method and is constantly embellishing his backstory while Hugh is the patsy and coke-sniffer completely out of his depth. Which leaves Kat, by far the most accomplished actor of the troupe, who is able to steer her accomplices out of the rising tide of criminal effluence. For now.
And so, as the tremulous trio goes deeper undercover, so they encounter more and more dangerous villains along the way. There are, of course, the Albanians, a dyed blonde assassin with a thing for meek, polite underdogs and Mr Big himself, a dentally inconvenienced Ian McShane with a Scottish accent that would make Mel Gibson laugh. Unfortunately, Deep Cover knows that it’s meant to be a comedy and it never lets us forget it. Real comedy evolves out of real situations (and characters) and these broad figures are caricatures. Nobody is really as clumsy as Hugh (Norman Wisdom existed in a different time), nor as stupid as Detective Sergeant Beverley (Cambridge Footlights alumnus and co-scripter Alexander Owen). The odd line engenders a smile (Marlon’s agent: “You’re from the Cotswolds, you’re not Al Pacino”), but it’s not enough to save this cumbersome skit show.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard, Orlando Bloom, Nick Mohammed, Paddy Considine, Sonoya Mizuno, Ian McShane, Sean Bean, Ben Ashenden, Alexander Owen, Omid Djalili, Nneka Okoye, Freya Parker, Susannah Fielding, Katy Wix, Ben Rufus Green, Simon Thorp.
Dir Tom Kingsley, Pro Walter Parkes, Laurie MacDonald and Colin Trevorrow, Screenplay Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly, Ben Ashenden and Alexander Owen, Ph Will Hanke, Pro Des Hannah Purdy Foggin, Ed Mark Williams, Music Daniel Pemberton, Costumes Rebecca Hale, Sound Glen Gathard.
Metronome Film Company/Parkes+MacDonald ImageNation-Amazon Prime Video.
99 mins. UK. 2024. UK and US Rel: 12 June 2025. Cert. 15.
