The premise is unusual, the actors are in form and the humour is superb. So even if the plot of Deep Cover is a stretch, it doesn’t matter.

British director Tom Kingsley’s film is about a comedy coach in London who infiltrates a criminal gang with two of her students. Detective Sergeant Graham (Sean Bean) believes that undercover operations fail because cops are poor performers. Rather than recruiting actual actors, Graham zeroes in on struggling improv teacher Kat (Bryce Dallas Howard), whose last stand-up gig was a decade ago.

Kat selects Marlon (Orlando Bloom), an aspiring actor who is stuck doing commercials, and IT company employee Hugh (Nick Mohammed) who joins Kat’s class to better his poor social skills. The trio’s first assignment escalates rapidly from routine fake cigarette bust to major drug racket expose.

Kat, Marlon and Hugh get involved with London underworld luminary Fly (Paddy Considine) and his enforcer Shosh (Sonoya Mizuno). The imposters’ fear at being caught increases when Fly introduces them to his boss. Metcalfe (Ian McShane) smells a rat, and rightly so.

The movie, which is out on Prime Video, has no business succeeding, but it does. Tom Kingsley’s controlled direction of a madcap script by Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly, Ben Ashenden and Alexander Owen...

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