January 24, 2009
Saturday Night at the movies
Tonight's movie is the little-known 1992 crime drama Deep Cover, starring Laurence Fishburn and Jeff Goldblum. It's a tautly written tale about a cop (Fishburne), recruited by the DEA to go undercover, work his way up the underworld foodchain, and bring down a South American drug lord.
Fishburne soon meets up with a yuppie lawyer (Goldblum), who has crossed the line from criminal defense into criminal offense. The deep-cover cop and the dirty lawyer (redundant, I know) join forces and Fishburne soon finds himself -- like his shyster associate -- crossing all sorts of lines: personal, professional, moral and legal.
It's a dark story, stylishly directed by Bill Duke (whom you might recognize in front of the camera in Car Wash, Commando and Predator), working off an excellent script by Michael Tolkin (The Player and The Rapture). Fishburne is great, utterly convincing in the part, and Goldblum surprisingly funny as the out of control, Jewish good boy gone very, very bad. Clarence Williams III, of Mod Squad fame, burns with righteous indignation as a detective with an abiding belief in the innate goodness of very bad men, and Gregory Sierra, best known as a funny sidekick on the '70s sitcom Barney Miller, makes for a chilling sociopath.
Deep Cover is well worth 107 minutes of your time.
Posted by Mike Lief at January 24, 2009 11:03 PM
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Comments
You are about 17 years late on this review.
Posted by: ILG at January 25, 2009 10:55 AM