Amazon Prime’s new film, Deep Cover, has a simple concept: a policeman hires three improv actors to help with a small sting operation. Things go sideways. It’s the kind of movie that tells you just what to expect while surprising you along the way.
Bryce Dallas Howard leads the film as an American actress in London teaching improv comedy classes while she “reworks her solo show,” which is actor speak for “treads water in the abyss of lost dreams.” Her misfit cohorts are Orlando Bloom’s Method actor (every interaction is an audition for himself) and Nick Mohammed’s IT geek who stumbled into the class in a desperate attempt to make friends. Their reluctant exploits bring them into contact with the likes of Sean Bean, Paddy Considine, and Ian McShane—so you know that’s not good.
The script provides the needed complications and twists to make it more than a one-joke pony, but I can’t tell you about them. The joy of the film is being in the same place as the improv trio: unable to predict what craziness might assail them at any time. It’s a real feat that the film is both very funny and very tense; that’s not an easy balance to strike. But do go in with no foreknowledge of the plot, for your own pleasure.
I am so happy every time Howard gets cast in a movie. She’s a truly versatile actress (look no further than her debut in The Village), but she doesn’t fit the typical Hollywood mold. She has her own thing going on and her own charm and her own beauty, and I am continuously glad that filmmakers are finding ways to leverage that. She is the perfect anchor character in Deep Cover, as the only talented improviser on the ad hoc team and an easy girl-next-door-type that allows most audiences to identify with her. Not only is her character the best actor in the film, but I dare to say that so is she.
Nick Mohammed does his thing, which I hope you all appreciate as much as I do, and Orlando Bloom actually holds his own, partially because he is playing a mockery of a serious actor. The film looks great, feels slick, and allows Howard to rock a variety of amazing looks. What more could you possibly need?