{"id":177849,"date":"2025-06-12T07:50:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T07:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/177849\/"},"modified":"2025-06-12T07:50:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T07:50:11","slug":"bryce-dallas-howard-orlando-bloom-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/177849\/","title":{"rendered":"Bryce Dallas Howard & Orlando Bloom Star"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe premise of Deep Cover is almost funny enough to carry the entire film: A trio of improv actors is recruited by the London police to go undercover on a low-level sting operation, on the theory that they can think on their feet. Fortunately, this comedy is more than its plot thanks to the hilariously straight-faced performances of Bryce Dallas Howard<\/a>, Orlando Bloom<\/a> and Nick Mohammed<\/a> as the hapless actors who wind up embedded with dangerous London gangsters. The film approaches its action tropes with an effective sense of absurdity, but it\u2019s the stars\u2019 kinetic commitment to the bit that makes this relentlessly silly film work.<\/p>\n

\n\tHoward brings energy and conviction to her role as Kat, an American in London whose visa has almost run out, along with her luck as an actor. Now she teaches improv classes to play the bills, and faces the pitying looks of her old friends.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tDeep Cover\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n

\tAn easy, breezy good time.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVenue: <\/strong>Tribeca Festival (Spotlight Narrative)
Cast:<\/strong> Bryce Dallas Howard, Orlando Bloom, Nick Mohammed, Paddy Considine, Sonoya Mizuno, Ian McShane, Sean Bean
Director: <\/strong>Tom Kingsley
Writers: <\/strong>Derek Connolly & Colin Trevorrow, Ben Ashenden and Alexander Owen
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRated R,
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 40 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tBloom is not exactly known for comedy (Pirates of the Caribbean aside) but is wonderfully cast here as one of Kat\u2019s students, Marlon, an ultra-Method actor who constructs elaborate, dramatic backstories for his characters even when auditioning for a television commercial. His biggest role so far is in cheesy Medieval costume as \u201cPizza Knight\u201d for a commercial, and his agent finally drops him after saying, \u201cYou\u2019re from the Cotswolds, you\u2019re not Al Pacino.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMohammed is known for comedy, notably as Nathan on Ted Lasso, and is a natural for the role of Hugh, a buttoned-up, socially inept IT guy so desperate for friends and connection he impulsively signs up for Kat\u2019s class, even though he has the shakiest grasp of what improv is.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe scenes introducing those three are among the funniest, with the actors leaning into the earnest aspects of their characters even while reveling in their goofiness. Sean Bean<\/a> soon turns up as Billings, a cop who recruits Kat and asks her to bring two colleagues along for the sting. He offers them \u00a3200 each simply for walking into a store and buying some illegal cigarettes. With her best students unavailable, she has to resort to Marlon and Hugh.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe consequences ratchet up during that sting when their often misguided improv impulses take off. They just can\u2019t help themselves. Marlon takes on the guise of a thug named Roach and of course overplays the role. The clueless Hugh blurts out \u201cYes, and\u201d at inappropriate moments, as if it\u2019s a line of dialogue instead of the most basic improv rule. Kat is shrewder, and leaps in to try to save things, only to make them more complicated. <\/p>\n

\n\tBefore long they are meeting with a mob boss, Fly, played by Paddy Considine<\/a>, who makes the character as tough as they come until it turns out he might not be so perceptive. Kat convinces him she is Bonnie, the brains of the operation, and that they are drug dealers. Marlon is the muscle, who dubs Hugh \u201cThe Squire,\u201d the guy who tastes and authenticates the cocaine. With all that great mob access, Billings refuses to let them out of the gig, and when things go further awry they have to meet with the angry big boss (Ian McShane<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\n\tBehind the scenes of the film there is a bit of a Jurassic World<\/a> reunion. Trevorrow, who directed and co-wrote that mega-hit starring Howard, wrote a version of the Deep Cover screenplay along with his Jurassic writing partner Derek Connolly more than a decade ago. Eventually Ben Ashenden and Alexander Owen were brought in to rewrite and transplant the story to London, and they also have substantial supporting roles as detectives on the trail of the improv trio. Those sleuths aren\u2019t so smart themselves, mistakenly thinking that Kat and her gang are the masterminds behind London\u2019s drug trafficking. In the detectives\u2019 defense, the three do accidentally knock off a notorious assassin.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe director, Tom Kingsley, is known for the droll British television comedy Stath Lets Flats, but the tone of Deep Cover is more reminiscent of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost comedies like Hot Fuzz, with ridiculous plots and characters and consistently sharp but loose-limbed performances. Kingsley directs with confidence, even though the film sags a bit when the ever-escalating action starts to overtake the character comedy. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe action is effective enough, full of chases. In the most ludicrous, the detectives drive through narrow streets chasing Kat, Marlon and Hugh, who are trying to outrun them on rental bikes. Those scenes aren\u2019t especially inventive, but because the film is referencing stock action tropes, they don\u2019t need to be.<\/p>\n

\n\tDeep Cover played at the SXSW London and Tribeca<\/a> festivals shortly before dropping on Amazon Prime. Still, it arrives with relatively little hype considering its starry cast, which makes it a pleasant surprise, easy-to-watch breezy fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The premise of Deep Cover is almost funny enough to carry the entire film: A trio of improv…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[33006,73346,77,73347,35023,3943,33007,33008,73348,44350,71901,71902,73349,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-177849","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-bryce-dallas-howard","9":"tag-colin-trevorrow","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ian-mcshane","12":"tag-jurassic-world","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-nick-mohammed","15":"tag-orlando-bloom","16":"tag-paddy-considine","17":"tag-sean-bean","18":"tag-tribeca","19":"tag-tribeca-2025","20":"tag-tribeca-film-festival","21":"tag-uk","22":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}