Deep Cover (2025)

Sometimes a simple idea executed well by talented people is all you need for a fun couple of hours – and that’s exactly what this entertaining independent British comedy/crime thriller is.

Premise: After aspiring actor Marlon (Orlando Bloom) and socially awkward IT worker Hugh (Nick Mohammed) sign up for a comedy improv class run by struggling stand-up comedian Kat (Bryce Dallas Howard), the trio are unexpectedly recruited by Detective Sergeant Billings (Sean Bean) to assist with a low-level sting operation.  But events soon spiral out of control and the improv actors find themselves neck deep in London’s criminal underworld.

Review:

For a film that’s about improv, it’s perhaps ironic that the script for this comedy/thriller feels like a finely tuned piece of work that’s the product of much blood, sweat and tears.  We’ve all seen comedy films that have been largely improvised, and it’s fair to say that their quality varies tremendously – some (like one of my all-time favourite comedies, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy) are consistently funny because of their bizarre tangents, while others (like Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues) can be quite unfocused and hit-and-miss from one improvised scene to the next.

But although Deep Cover is a film about comedy improv, it’s actually a tightly scripted, neatly plotted and meticulously performed comedy set in London’s criminal underworld.  There aren’t any scenes where the actors appear to be trying to one-up each other, or trying to see who can go off on the most amusing flight of fancy – and yet the filmmakers also appear to have given their actors just enough space and freedom to really let their characters fly.

“…the sense of humour feels so quintessentially British…”

Believe it or not, the original story for Deep Cover came from Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly of Jurassic World fame, before they handed over the scriptwriting reins to the British comedy double-act of Ben Ashenden and Alexander Owen.  It’s now hard to imagine what the film might have been like set in the US, because the sense of humour brought to the project by its writers, and by its director Tom Kingsley, feels so quintessentially British (even with Bryce Dallas Howard bringing a bit of Hollywood magic with her).

Like with so many comedies, it lives or dies in the hands of the performers – but the filmmakers here have assembled an amazing cast.  Bryce Dallas Howard has the least showy of the three lead roles, as Kat is effectively the ‘everyman’ character that keeps things grounded – but she still gets some great comedic moments to have fun with (especially while portraying her undercover double-identity).  I’ve thought for some time that Nick Mohammed is a great comedic actor that deserves some higher-profile roles, so it was satisfying to see him get more to do as Hugh in Deep Cover.  Sometimes comedians like Nick Mohammed can become typecast as playing the “odd” sidekick, or the “annoying weirdo”, but here all of Hugh’s character quirks come from a place of social awkwardness and lack of confidence, rather than being weird for the sake of being weird.

“…I had no idea Orlando Bloom could be so funny…”

But the comedic revelation for me was Orlando Bloom – I had no idea he could be so funny.  He plays Marlon as a self-aggrandising ‘serious’ actor who is determined to explore his characters’ backstories and emotional depths even when he only has one line in a tacky commercial.  As the film progresses, Marlon’s insistence that he stays in character as a Method actor, while also seeking to constantly up the ante and expand his backstory, is the source of many of the movie’s funniest moments.

The film is also stacked with talent outside of the main three leads – Paddy Considine and Ian McShane are clearly having fun as gangland bosses, while Sean Bean plays the veteran detective who’s running the undercover sting operation, and the chameleonic Sonoya Mizuno plays a ruthless enforcer.  Even the smaller roles are brought to life by some of the unsung heroes of British comedy - like Omid Djalili playing an underworld contact, Freya Parker, Susannah Fielding and Sophie Duker as Kat’s settled and successful friends, and the writers Ben Ashenden and Alexander Owen even pop up as a pair of mismatched cops.

“…kept me entertained & amused from beginning to end…”

The plot has fun with the improv concept of “yes, and...”, as the improv actors’ attitude unwittingly causes events to escalate far beyond the original sting operation (which was just to catch a newsagent selling illegal cigarettes).  Deep Cover kept me entertained and amused from beginning to end, with several laugh-out-loud moments that put a big smile on my face.

Shot on location in London, the fact that everything around the central trio is played seriously only makes their misadventures all the funnier.  And while it doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, the plot still managed to come up with a few twists and turns along the way to complement the comedy performances.  And as Kat says in her improv class: when all else fails, throw in a grenade and see what happens...