This Hilarious Prime Video Caper Flips the Script on British Crime Drama

You cannot move for successful British crime shows at the moment. Whether department Q or adolescence on Netflix; Mobland on Paramount Plus; Or slow horses on Apple TV Plus (even if it is technically more a spy program), gravelly content and worthy of a frenzy appears on the best streaming services, all delivered in a dynamic range of British accents.

But a change occurs. We are about to participate in a comfortable summer, when the genre will obtain a light comedy injection, largely thanks to the long -awaited adaptation of the series of books from the murder club of Richard Osman, which takes place on Netflix in August.

In the meantime, Prime Video gets there first with Deep Cover – an action comedy that returns the British crime script seriously to the best possible way.

In the film, which arrives on Prime Video on June 12, an improbable trio of improvisation actors, all different levels of skills, is recruited as infiltration police officers and infiltrates the underground world of London, theoretically to break a drug cycle. Needless to say, AM-DRAM chaos follows.

Bryce Dallas Howard plays a failed stand-up comic strip that has become an improvisation teacher who classifies his two most unhappy students in the gang: a method actor with delusions of magnitude, played by Orlando Bloom and a Nerd from the nervous IT office, played by Nick Mohammed. Together, the three, striking Bonnie, Roach and The Squire, make their way through meetings with the gangland bosses, each more intimidating than the next, and somehow manage to find friendship and romance along the way.

I went to the first of the film at Sxsw London last week and I left convinced that Deep Cover should be at the top of the monitoring list of all this weekend. The combination of comedy and action landed squarely in the crowd territory, somewhere between Hot Fuzz and the autumn guy.

Of the three stars of Deep Cover, it is Mohammed who has the most established comedy chops and gets the biggest laughs (you probably know him better as Nathan Shelley in Ted Lasso – The Kit Man who is lacking to become a rival coach). This does not mean Bloom, which leaves somewhat from his comfort zone in this role, and Howard does not also deliver. The chemistry between the three main characters allows you to root yourself long after their approach “yes and …” improvisation of infiltration work seems to fail them.

The director of the film, Tom Kingsley, also worked on the winning television program of a BAFTA, Stath Lets Flats (available on Max), which is simultaneously the most Greek and most British television piece that you can hope, and that I have long been convinced is a work of major comic strip genius. Deep Cover has the same clumsy, almost eccentric humor echoes, but with an Amazonian size budget behind.

However, as Kingsley explained it during a question and answer session after the first, the budget was much smaller than anyone could expect for such production. The contribution of stars in good faith Hollywood Bloom and Johnson attracted more funding, as is Amazon on board. But the film would have been made on something tight by Hollywood standards.

However, it is easy to see where the injection of money ended. Deep Cover’s action scenes are sometimes too slapstick, perfectly suited to the three clowns of their center, and sometimes so graphic or at high octane that they do not always freeze with the overall tenor of the film. He is a minor in hand in the scheme of things, and who should not dissuade you.

Despite all its nonsense and cascades, Deep Cover is ultimately a comforting story on the development of adult friendships at this stage of life when you might feel like the moments of such opportunities have passed.

If you are looking for something easy and fun to look at this weekend, look no further.