Deep Cover

In “Deep Cover,” three improvisational comedians are recruited by Detective Sergeant Billings (Sean Bean) of London’s Metropolitan Police to run a sting operation by utilizing the number one rule of improv – “Always say yes” – to improbably penetrate the deepest reaches of the criminal underworld. Sort of suggesting an inverted version of Bill Murray’s “The Man Who Knew Too Little,” director Tom Kingsley’s straight-to-Amazon-Prime action-comedy sounds like such a can’t miss idea that I’m surprised it hasn’t already been done. But even if in blending occasionally gruesome black comedy with a true heart of gold, “Deep Cover” is often fun and funny, it also skims along in one gear, never quite blooming into something that feels truly outrageous and alive to its own enticing possibilities.

The unlikely undercover team is commanded by Kat (Bryce Dallas Howard), a struggling stand-up comic rendered insecure by her more successful friends, and improv teacher, a living manifestation of a version of that Liz Lemon line from “30 Rock” about where she sees herself in five years: “Teaching improv on cruise ships.” She is joined by Marlon (Orlando Bloom), a commercial actor yearning to go Method, and IT worker Hugh (Nick Mohammed) who signs up for the class in effort to gain some confidence. And though the four-person screenplay affords them little dimension beyond these set-ups, their distinct comic traits work well together, as do the actors, impeccably harmonizing with their roles. Bloom is over the top; Mohammed is deadpan; Howard is the glue melding them together. In the end, though, no one, perhaps, is more important than Bean. If the plot strains credulity, he credibly effects the air of someone who would send three amateurs into harm’s way.

Less successful is Kingsley’s decision to recount the action scenes in that familiar Hollywood house style of shaky camerawork and herky jerky editing. I suspect the intention was to underline the characters’ out of place sensation by plunking them down in a real action movie, which I kind of admire, even if only winds up undercutting the comedy and creating a tonal imbalance. It’s bolder, at least, then a script filled with quasi-outrageous reversals tracking to a predictable conclusion. Predictability is not inherently a bad thing, but in the case of “Deep Cover,” it counteracts the whole notion of these improv comedians responding to one another in the moment. Rather than seeming to make it all up as they go, they follow the outline to the end.