Deep Cover (1992)

Only recently revived for our delectation, Bill Duke’s terrific undercover cop thriller deserves to feature on many best of lists, and now that it’s finally been released on Blu-ray, hopefully it will find the wider audience it deserves. With Lawrence Fishburne probably most recently being in film fans’ minds for not being in the new Matrix film, it’s the perfect time to sit down and enjoy arguably his greatest role as Russel Stevens, a cop who goes deep undercover attempting to eventually take down L.A’s biggest drug dealer, David Jason (a wonderful Jeff Goldblum). Fishburne eases his way into the role, but by the end you truly do wonder whether he’s gone to far. Stevens surprisingly performs a voice-over throughout the film; intriguing in the sense that I couldn’t see how the addition of one would work in such a film, and yet it does, offering insight into how Stevens mind is working, forcing you to believe his own frustration and confusion. He slowly works his way up from low-level drug trading until he is dealing with Jason himself. Values and integrity are topics that go with undercover thrillers like bread and butter, but Deep Cover packs them into a Venn diagram that’s impossible to read, such are the blurred lines. The film is also steeped in a neon noir sheen, shot mostly at night (falling in line with the hours that Stevens is forced to keep) meaning that when the neon hits, it draws you even further into the shadowy underbelly of L.A. Deep Cover is an unsung gem of the nineties, and if you’ve got time, you should add it to your Christmas list. 8.0/10