Undescribable Perfection

Lack of good storyline.

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Deep Cover is one of those better drug movies, an ode masterpiece to the legendary actor Bill Duke, who directs this impressive pic (surprise, where this hardly ever out of work character actor, has been gracing our screens for years. The solid actioner moves along nicely too, which has much more more to say, and gives us better insight into the drug problem. Running shy of a month at the cinema, where I took my dad to see it, the movie fared better with me, than I thought it would. We've got a real story going on, and characters. It's plotted beautifully like a piano tune. It's nice opening flashback establishes the main character's reasons for later becoming a cop, and hating drugs and liquor. When John Hull (a much slender Larry Fishburne) is approached by an DEA agent (a great Charles Martin Smith- fancy him popping up) he at first, is of course, adverse at the idea, of going undercover, when he realizes he's passed the audition (the earlier black interviewee cops had mixed reactions, you could say). He is talked around, coaxed into thinking he can do much better as an undercover cop, than walking the beat. Here, he meets an assortment of characters, mostly unsavory, one slick scum selling drug dealer, Luther, never a worse victim, at the hands of a whacking pool Cue, which as Fishburne describes says in his somber and flat voice, "The guy has a life expectancy of half an hour". This is a guy who really goes undercover, playing the part, living in squalor, and quickly rising to luxury, while working his way up the ladder, to nail the main players, one a real nasty, in a priest outfit, who rips Fishburne's earing, out of his ear. These are the pr..ks, behind this ever growing drug enterprise that kill so many of the young, hooked to crack, heroin. We learn a bit too, not just from the supposed good guys, but the leeches in fancy suits selling it. Goldblum as a slick bent lawyer, stood out, where Fishburne and him form a partnership. The movie has a lot of interesting attachments, like a young teen crack whore and kid, Fishburne befriends, as well as a hectoring undercover cop (Clarence Williams 3r'd who fatally buys it). Fishburne of course, can't reveal himself. We have a nice thrilling chase, and I guess a twist of character in Smith's intentions, where too we have a deadly hand smacking competition, and toilet trained pimp, who uses Fishburne's shoes as a head, before Fishburne, unlawfully blows him away. Yeah, he goes all the way, here. All in all Deep Cover has a lot to offer, as well as a great opening soundtrack. It has some actors who only pop up in a few other movies here and there. Fishburne holds back, playing it casual here, and he comes off better for it. I must say, it's a very real and likable performance, though it was Goldblum who stole the pic. Too it's much apparent, Hull has been hiding from himself, while in uniform

Hard-hitting and stylish, this film quickly moves beyond the usual notion of 'undercover drug work' into an altogether more practical & unpleasant understanding...The film is well-paced and, most appropriately for this year, introduces a female art-gallery owner as it develops a relationship subplot. As the story progresses, the film breaks boundaries further & demonstrates an exceptionally sharp sensibility -- but fairly much returns to the standards for the climactic scene.While not a Scorsese or Tarantino masterpiece, this film is very highly recommended.

What a horrifically bad film. Deep Cover is a weak, over-the-top story with too much angst and testosterone - and not nearly enough reality.The dialog is so astronomically bad that it is outright laughable. In fact, Fishburne's character uses enough bad rhymes to make Nipsy Russel do cartwheels in his grave. I have absolutely no idea what writer/director Tolkin was thinking.Worst still, the soundtrack seems to be hijacked by some bad 80s film - along with some of the wardrobe. It was just ashame to see Fishburne, Goldblum and Julia a part of this embarrassing debacle.Avoid at all costs. If you want something gritty, with the noir feel, indulge in some of the classics: Double Indemnity, Sunset Strip or even modern gems like Chinatown, Meanstreets, King of New York and Romeo is Bleeding.

Where to begin in commenting about this film? Deep Cover - the low-budget motion picture that captivated moviegoers on its release in 1992 and thereafter with its multifarious blur of conventions - has become irreplaceable in this cineaste's film-loving career.It seemed indistinct enough at the time of its release. Like so many other films about cops and bad guys, Deep Cover promised little else from what we were used to. Since movie culture primed filmgoers for stories about police who kill to attempt justice, we expected little else from it. Actor Laurence Fishburne, perhaps best known for his roles in School Daze (1988) and Boyz N the Hood (1991), didn't seem out of place here (in his first lead role), while actor Jeff Goldblum definitely did.I missed the film in theaters.The film's storyline owes its uniqueness to the subversions it pulls off. Deep Cover builds into the mythical from what seems like a simple cop story, while laying the psychology of its protagonist Russell Stevens, Jr. (Fishburne) bare with its madcap plotting. A proper reading of it is facilitated by the words of a passing character early in the film: "That's the problem these days. People have no imagination." Imagination is exactly what is needed to absorb the narrative of a cop pretending to be a drug dealer, who eventually realizes he's a drug dealer pretending to be a cop. Russell, renamed John by DEA agent Gerald Carver (Charles Martin Smith) to engage his undercover operation, braves misadventure and danger to work his way into the mid-level drug operation of David Jason (Jeff Goldblum). The idea explained by Carver is to work through and ascend a pyramid topped by a high-level cocaine supplier and take him down via the operation. But John must brave Hell to reach his goal, which is introduced to him by the superior agent Carver who says he's "God." A truly fascinating scene in the film comes due to masculine grudgery between Jason and drug dealer Felix Barbosa (Gregory Sierra). It is the birthday party of Barbosa's aide Gopher (Sydney Lassick) and Felix is more than ready to question David's criminal toughness. Before the eyes of the assemblage gathered around a table, Felix taunts David until he loses his cool. Felix then requests that David play a "game" of hand-slapping with him. John's vocal objection falls upon deaf ears. David goes along with the brutal sport until he is injured and humiliated. As John and David leave the small gathering, John notes by voice-over that one of the men will eventually kill the other.John is brought aboard Jason's operation. While John argues that Jason needs a partner, Jason says he wants him as a courier. Jason explains his goal to John of introducing a practical synthetic cocaine to the market - a fitting ambition for a white husband who habitually lusts after younger black women and learns to murder for vindication. (The issue of interracial sex is given no short shrift in Duke's theatrical sci-fi film, by the way.) John finds a trustworthy friend in African art dealer Betty (Victoria Dillard), but only travels further along the path of righteous outrage. David's path to Nirvana is paved with black and Latino bodies. It should seem that John's moment of realization of killing a man with impunity might serve as a wake-up call. It doesn't. Only when John's neatly constructed role collapses before him, at Carver's behest, comes his awakening. Out-powered and frustrated, John realizes that he's acted as a puppet to the Feds. Fishburne rocks the screen with this mercurial persona of his creation. John takes his very first drink and leaves the sputtering Carver behind. Russell/John's rebirth is soon to come.The best term to describe John's resolution of the conflict between social hierarchical manipulation and spiritual salvation is vigilante justice. John must rewrite the rules of the game and reclaim Russell before it is too late. And he must do it while dealing with high-level drug suppliers and the Feds.Probably the most compelling aspect of Duke's film on its 1992 release and to date is its avant-garde form and content. David Jason's worldview could best be described as forcedly Edenic, whereas John Hull's plot at the film's end shows thought of Utopian character. The confusion that the John/Russell character suffers toward the film's climax is reminiscent of Ralph Ellison's 1952 novel Invisible Man. In each work, a black male protagonist struggles against a disturbingly fluid identity put upon him by society. This perhaps intentional "homage" to Ellison's classic waxes especially rhapsodic when John delivers free verse poetry on the spot and quotes crime writer Iceberg Slim when his luck runs out.Jeff Goldblum's David Jason is a product of genius, a brilliantly crafted greed warrior similar to, and better than, the one limned by Al Pacino's Satan in The Devil's Advocate. This is white liberalism gone psychotic. And as for Bill Duke's direction, it was never better realized as it is during Deep Cover's macho dog-fights, stark realizations, and camera tricks (the shot wherein a man walks across a frame and wipes it away to the next one has since become standard in black film), and it may never be again. Deep Cover ushered in the fragments of an emerging black film aesthetic. Maybe some day it will receive the critical overview it deserves.