In some ways, "Deep Cover" resembles "Rush," last year's downbeat thriller about two narcotics officers whose drug use gets the better of them. But "Deep Cover" is cautionary and troubling without being hopeless. It manages to be highly entertaining while getting its message across quite powerfully.
Larry Fishburne, who played the strict father in "Boyz N the Hood," stars here as John Hull, a stiff-necked Cleveland cop. When he was a young boy, John watched his junkie father gunned down after robbing a store, and he promised himself he'd escape that fate.
In many ways, however, John has gone too far the other way. He's sober — he's never had a drink in his life — but he's also distant and filled with repressed rage.
All of this, in the eyes of the Drug Enforcement Agency, makes John the perfect candidate for an undercover job in Los Angeles.
MOVIE He's handpicked by a DEA chief (Charles Martin Smith) to live on the streets as a drug dealer, so he can gradually endear himself to L.A. drug lords, the ultimate goal being to break up a huge trafficking ring.
John reluctantly accepts the job and it isn't long before he finds himself in league with drug-running attorney David Jason (Jeff Goldblum), with whom he eventually teams up to distribute a new designer drug.
As you might expect, John gets in deeper than he planned and he has to witness and participate in activities that are more and more repugnant to him. Eventually, he will have to make some very hard choices, especially when he's abandoned by those who put him in this position.
As directed by veteran actor Bill Duke, "Deep Cover" is edgy and tough and it's much leaner and better focused than "A Rage in Harlem," the film Duke helmed last year. And there are many tense scenes here, moments when audience members aren't quite sure what will happen, a real rarity these days.
Duke also manages to get in some digs about racism, but not with the strident polemic attitude used by some black filmmakers.
Casting Fishburne in the lead, with the actor's low-key demeanor, and his ability to convey something constantly seething beneath the surface, was just right. And Goldblum is brilliant as the eccentric, quirky lawyer who tries to play both sides of the fence. (Even at the end, we still feel something for this guy, despite all he's done.) The rest of the cast is also good.
"Deep Cover" is a nice surprise, and a welcome respite from the bulk of what's out there right now in this season of cinematic sludge.
It is rated R for violence, profanity, vulgarity, sex, nudity and drug abuse.