There’s an ingenious thought at the centre of Deep Cover: if undercover work is, effectively, Method acting, what would happen if you put an improv group — whose very instinct is to 'yes, and' a situation — into minor sting operations? Tom Kingsley's comedy feature not only commits conceptually to that idea — it does so structurally, too, barrelling forward as it throws our heroes into situations of increasing danger and absurdity.
That initial idea came from Colin Trevorrow (Jurassic World) and his writing partner Derek Connolly; their screenplay was retooled by British comedy duo The Pin — aka Ben Ashenden and Alexander Owen, briefly seen in Jurassic World Dominion — and relocated to London. The joyous absurdity of the duo's lockdown sketch videos is largely intact here, as Deep Cover both leans into tropes and subverts them to pull off sizeable laughs.
Deep Cover is well constructed, committing to the bit in the gag department.
It helps that the material is in great hands. Bryce Dallas Howard's pure charisma shines through in Kat (improv skills: sizeable), who waited too long for her big break and sees police sting work as an easy £200. Orlando Bloom isn't known for LOLs galore, but revels in playing it super-serious as Method mad Marlon (improv skills: moderate), desperate to escape his advertising mascot role, 'Pizza Knight. "You're from the Cotswolds, you're not Al Pacino," his exasperated agent reminds him. Wringing the most laughs is Ted Lasso's Nick Mohammed as sweet, mild-mannered Hugh (improv skills: non-existent). Watching him snort multiple lines of coke ("Very nice. Very nice!" he assures Paddy Considine's Mob boss Fly) or trying to dispose of a body on a Boris bike is a delight.
Smartly, everything around the trio is played largely straight. Shot on real London streets, with narrative rug-pulls in its crime story, it sticks to Kat's improv rules: escalate the stakes and chuck in a grenade every so often. Sean Bean channels Slow Horses' Jackson Lamb as the gruff Northern copper in charge of Kat and co, who dispatches the trio to buy counterfeit cigarettes, and watches in awe and horror as they're swiftly sucked into Gangs Of London territory.
If anything, it's The Pin's own appearances — as police officers seeking Kat, Marlon and Hugh, unaware the trio are undercover — that threaten to unbalance things, since they can't help going for laughs themselves. But in all other regards, Deep Cover is well constructed, committing to the bit in the gag department while delivering clear set-ups and pay-offs for its central characters — a comedy that, beyond the class-A drugs and body bags, is about how improv gives three lonely losers a new lease on life.
