His character, who’s squeamish about all the violent goings-on around him, feels like he’s dropped in from another movie, offering absurd near-comic relief to the otherwise gritty crime thriller. Similarly, Sydney Lassick as Gopher, the seemingly homosexual right-hand man to Barbosa, is a bizarre addition to the cast. It’s part of the point of his character but I don’t totally buy him as a drug dealer. Goldblum, for instance, is solid but feels out of place.
DEEP COVER TV
It’s tautly directed too, likely aided by Duke’s experience as a TV director, though it’s much more stylish than most TV shows were at the time.ĭuke’s experience as an actor also helps him get the most out of his impressive cast, though I do think some of them are miscast.
Bojan Bazelli’s cinematography is gorgeous, with vivid use of colour and evocative shots of the city at night.
One thing that particularly struck me this time around was how stylish it is. The men must decide where their futures lie.ĭeep Cover proved to be better than I remember in some aspects and worse in others. However, as Stevens diverges further from his lawful role as a police officer (not helped by Carver making it clear the police are under the thumb of top drug-lord Guzmán) and Jason falls foul of Barbosa, both their positions grow ever more fragile. He admires Stevens’ tough, fearless approach, which rubs off on him as they work together. Indeed, he wants to break out of the cartel and set up a business selling a legal drug he’s become aware of, bringing Stevens on as a partner. Jason looks to be a standard ‘yuppie’ on the surface, with a clean-cut family life contrasting his drug connections. Needless to say, I snapped up the chance to get my hands on a screener, to see if the film lived up to my fond memories.ĭeep Cover sees Laurence Fishburne play Russell Stevens Jr, a police officer picked by his superior, Carver (Charles Martin Smith), to work as an undercover agent, aiming to bust part of a drug ring.Īs Stevens infiltrates the gang, hoping to arrest mid-level boss Barbosa (Gregory Sierra), he befriends dealer David Jason (Jeff Goldblum). So I was excited and a little surprised to hear Criterion were handling a new release of the film on Blu-ray. I used to like it quite a bit but I’ve not seen it for a long time.
DEEP COVER MOVIE
It’s a title I had on VHS back when my movie collection could easily fit on one small shelf (now it’s in the several thousands and spread across every nook and cranny of my house) so it got quite a few plays in my teenage years. I should have been more aware of Duke as a director, as Deep Cover is a film I know well.
As a film director, he’s probably most famous for Deep Cover though. He was somewhat of a pioneer, becoming the first black director to work on several major TV series, including Dallas. Working largely in TV, he has a whopping 67 credits to his name on IMDB. I know Bill Duke best as a memorable supporting actor in films such as Predator and Commando but I wasn’t aware until recently that he has an almost equally prolific career as a director. The final film was loosely based on a book written by someone previously part of the drug enforcement agency (I couldn’t find any more information on this source material, but it was mentioned by Duke in the special features). The explosion was such a phenomenon that it even spawned its own spoof in 1996, Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood.ĭeep Cover was originally developed to be a sequel to the Andy Garcia film Internal Affairs but that idea was dropped after a while, possibly to allow the producers to cast Laurence Fishburne in the lead and join in the black cinema boom.
Titles included Boyz N the Hood, New Jack City, Juice, House Party and Menace II Society, to name a few. Starring: Laurence Fishburne, Jeff Goldblum, Victoria Dillard, Gregory Sierra, Charles Martin Smith, Clarence Williams III, Roger Guenveur Smith, Sydney Lassickīill Duke’s Deep Cover came out around the time of a black film ‘explosion’ in Hollywood, which saw a raft of high-profile films with black directors and/or black stars released over the early 90s.
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