Deep Cover
Tags: neo noir, murder, blaxploitation, flashback

Plot synopsis:
In Cleveland, 1972, Russell Stevens Jr. is the son of a drug addicted, alcoholic man, who tells his son never to be like him. Stevens then witnesses his father getting shot and killed while robbing a liquor store. He swears that he will never end up like him.
In 1991, Stevens is a police officer. He is recruited by DEA Special Agent Gerald Carver to go undercover on a major sting operation in Los Angeles, claiming that his criminal-like character traits will be more of a benefit undercover than they would serve him as a uniformed policeman. Stevens poses as drug dealer "John Hull" in order to infiltrate and work his way up the network of the west coast's largest drug importer, Anton Gallegos and his uncle Hector Gúzman, a South American politician. Stevens relocates to a cheap hotel in LA and begins dealing cocaine.
One day, Stevens is arrested by the devoutly religious L.A.P.D. Narcotics Detective Taft and his secretly corrupt partner Hernández, when he buys a kilogram in a set-up by Gallegos' low-level street supplier Eddie Dudley. At his arraignment, Stevens discovers that he bought "baby laxative" (mannitol) instead of cocaine and his case is dismissed. Stevens' self-appointed attorney David Jason, who is also a drug trafficker in Gallegos' network, rewards Stevens' silence with more cocaine and introduces Stevens to Felix Barbossa, the underboss to Gallegos. Felix kills Eddie when his finds out he's working with the LAPD and enlists Stevens as Eddie's replacement.
Stevens develops a romance with Betty McCutcheon, the manager of an art dealership which serves as a front to launder Jason's drug money profits. When one of Stevens' dealers is murdered by a rival dealer, Stevens kills him and is awarded a partnership in Jason's new business venture; distribution of a synthetic chemical variant of cocaine.
It turns out that Felix is a police informant working with Detective Hernández. Felix immediately gives up Stevens, Jason and Betty, and wants Jason killed during the arrest because of his business venture. Carver knows about this, but refuses to interfere forcing Stevens to violate orders and stop it himself by exposing Felix, which results in a vengeful Jason killing him, while Betty reneges the drug business because of it with Stevens´protection.
Gallegos comes to meet with Jason and Stevens and informs them that they have inherited Felix's debts to him. Later that day, Stevens meets with Carver to tell him about his meeting with Gallegos. Instead Carver pulls a gun on Stevens and orders him to surrender his weapon and get in his car. Angrily, Stevens disarms Carver and forces him to admit that the State Department has decided to leave Gallegos alone because Guzman may some day be useful as a political asset to them and Carver has decided to play along in exchange for career advancement. Stevens' disillusionment reaches its conclusion and he abandons his undercover status vowing to take down Gallegos and Guzman alone.
Stevens and Jason learn that Gallegos is going to kill them anyway, so they kill him first and steal a van storing over a $100 million of Gallegos' cash. Jason and Stevens invite Guzman to a shipyard and offer to return 80% of Gallegos' money if he agrees to invest the remaining 20% in their synthetic cocaine operation. Detective Taft, who has been tailing Stevens, interrupts the deal but is unable to arrest Guzman because of his diplomatic status. Guzman leaves the scene. Taft orders Stevens to surrender, but is shot and killed by Jason. Stevens reveals himself as a police officer and attempts to arrest Jason, but is forced to kill him in self-defence.
Afterwards, Carver coerces Stevens into testifying in favour of him and the DEA in return for not charging Betty for money laundering, but Stevens produces a videotape of the incriminating conversation with Guzman at the shipyard during his testimony to the House Judiciary Subcommittee, ruining the State Department´s intentions along with Guzman and Carver´s careers. Later he contemplates what to do with the $11 million of Gallegos' money he secretly kept.

Review: Laurence Fishburne (Boyz in the Hood, What's Love Got To Do With It) stars as a cop who has avoided drugs and the crime life because of his father's involvement and death in it.
Jeff Goldblum (who I have never seen in such a deep role) is also strong delivering a surprisingly good performance.
The scenes between Larry Fishburne and Charles Martin Smith are superb, the writing is virtually flawless, the action is exciting and fresh, and the topic is so relevant it's hard to believe it came out fifteen years ago.
In what is probably his best role to date, with apologies to his turns as Ike Turner in the classic "What's Love Got to Do With It", and Morpheus in the "Matrix" series, Laurence Fishburne plays undercover cop Russell Stevens, who poses as drug dealer John Hull to apprehend a notorious drug kingpin.
And let's not forget Gregory Sierra as a sadistic crime lord and one of the best character actors of our time, Clarence Williams III as an honest cop.
However as he is forced to deal drugs and kill to keep his cover he finds the lines between cop and criminal being lost  is he a cop pretending to be a dealer or a dealer pretending to be a cop?Larry (as he was then) Fishburne's first lead role was a typically dark vehicle.
For most of the film Fishburne's narration/voice over is a bit like a cross between Apocalypse Now and Blade Runner  it comes across as a little too dark and heavy and also explains things like we can't figure it out ourselves.
My main problem lies with the characters.Fishburne is excellent, a real model of underlying anger and violence, Goldblum is good but perhaps a little OTT on the yuppie/violence thing, but there's good support from Smith and Spin City's beautiful (and often underused  but not here) Victoria Dillard.
These things aren't a major problem, but with basically only two white characters in it, it's a little worrying that both are given that edge.However these are minor complaints that get lost with a good thriller.
Fishburne excels and Duke delivers a story that is a good thriller but also has a jaded, subversive edge..
Deep Cover stands out as a great example of how to make a good film and has something that is often missing from modern cinema.
The two main characters Russel/John (Fishburne) and David (Goldblum) parallel each other nicely, and reinforce the theme perfectly.On the one hand, there's Russel, the cop determined to make a difference in his community who is then taken advantage of by his superiors and used like a tool.
He too must make the same difficult choice, even stating in the film, "I want my cake and eat it too", which truthfully shows that it is a hard decision.While Deep Cover is labeled by most as a "hood movie", it is quite different in it's themes from most films in that genre.
The good guy(Fishburne)is really screwed up and you end up really liking the bad guy (Goldblum).
It has an almost "film noir" feel about - if that's possible for a color movie.Unlike many other films that have taken the undercover cop story and pursued it in a typical fashion, "Deep Cover" takes a tense, intimate approach.
Fishburne soon finds himself sucked into the dealer's life against his will, doing whatever he can to infiltrate the organization despite how far "deep" he's involved in it (as opposed to the cliché that the cop decides he likes being a drug dealer).
It stars Larry Fishburne, Jeff Goldblum, Charles Martin Smith, Victoria Dillard and Gregory Sierra.
The screenplay is always smart and cutting, mixing political hog-wash and social commentary with the harsh realities of lives dominated by drugs - the users - the sellers - the cartel, and the cop going deeper underground...Great performances from the leading players seal the deal here (Goldblum is not miscast he's the perfect opposite foil for Fishburne's broody fire), and while some clichés are within the play, the production as mounted, with the narrative devices of identification destruction (hello 2 masks) and that violence begets violence, marks this out as one the neo-noir crowd should note down as a must see.
However, the final chapter in this film gives us some satisfaction as we see those agency scumbags and two-bit congressmen getting their due.Laurence Fishburne was magnificent as a cop sent undercover to bust drug kingpins.
Clarence Williams III was the best I have seen him as a cop, who was Fishburne's conscience.Great film about undercover police work and the effect it can have on a cop..
The story moves very fast, which tells you something.As someone who loves narration, I enjoyed Laurence Fishburne's deep-voiced first-person narrating.
He was smooth in this gritty 1990s film noir filled with hard-boiled characters, rough language and some brutal scenes wrapped around a drug story.
He is shown as morally-bankrupt atheist.This movie is unusual in that the main character - Fishburne's "Russell Stevens" - goes from good guy to bad guy back to good guy!
One of the better drug movies has Fishburne who's really deceiving himself, going undercover.
His assignment (where a lot of other black cops failed the interview in quick cut scenes) for a shady superior-a fine Charles Martin Smith takes him on a journey through the underworld of drugs and it's penetrators.
Fishburne keeps working his way up, selling drugs, living bigger and better than he ever has, and feeling so much like s..t for it.
I liked Fishburne's character a lot and found little to fault about his approach to some tricky situations (the directors didn't make him do anything stupid or dumb just to work the plot.
Yes, it was somewhat violent at times, but 15 years later (post-Tarantino) it's nothing a woman who likes an intelligent, extremely well-acted, written and directed movie can't handle.
The writer did a good job of showing the conflict that Fishburne's character goes through after discovering the truth about the reality in which he finds himself (defending the right, while being used by the wrong, so to speak).
I also like the way the writer keeps one guessing until close to the end as to what choice the lead character makes - whether he will continue to fight the good fight or give into the power and lure of the darker side..
Russell Stevens, Jr., played here by the great Laurence Fishburne(Boyz N The Hood, The Matrix) is a Chicago police officer, who as a child witnessed his father die after a bungled robbery.
To do this, Steven's changes his name to John Hull, who moves to Los Angeles and lives in a small apartment and he succeeds as a small-time drug dealer.
Stevens and David become inseparable and immediately want out from their bosses clutches and start their own drug trade by dealing a safer, synthetic form of cocaine.This is actor Bill Duke's(who appeared in Commando, Predator) second directorial feature and is also his best.This is my favorite Laurence Fishburne film, sadly it's also his most under-appreciated.I give it a 9/10..
Anybody who likes action-filled dramas or films about the U.S. cocaine trade should see this movie..
I saw this thriller again last night, which stars Fishburne as a cop working under cover and, in a characterstic, slightly hysterical performance, Goldblum as his yuppie drugs partner.
Deep Cover is one of those better drug movies, an ode masterpiece to the legendary actor Bill Duke, who directs this impressive pic (surprise, where this hardly ever out of work character actor, has been gracing our screens for years.
When John Hull (a much slender Larry Fishburne) is approached by an DEA agent (a great Charles Martin Smith- fancy him popping up) he at first, is of course, adverse at the idea, of going undercover, when he realizes he's passed the audition (the earlier black interviewee cops had mixed reactions, you could say).
Here, he meets an assortment of characters, mostly unsavory, one slick scum selling drug dealer, Luther, never a worse victim, at the hands of a whacking pool Cue, which as Fishburne describes says in his somber and flat voice, "The guy has a life expectancy of half an hour".
This is a guy who really goes undercover, playing the part, living in squalor, and quickly rising to luxury, while working his way up the ladder, to nail the main players, one a real nasty, in a priest outfit, who rips Fishburne's earing, out of his ear.
The movie has a lot of interesting attachments, like a young teen crack whore and kid, Fishburne befriends, as well as a hectoring undercover cop (Clarence Williams 3r'd who fatally buys it).
Tolkin's surreal world is populated by a multitude of interesting supporting characters that allow the main players, Fishburne's Stevens and Goldblum's Jason, to take on a depth not seen in today's films.
I'll kill him myself." This clever dialogue and plot, as well as Duke's visual touches (which unfortunately dissolve as the film progresses) and the seamless performances of the stars and supporting crew have made Deep Cover one of my all-time favourite films and if you dig the wit and style of Unlawful Entry and Copland, I'm sure you'll agree.
What sets it apart from similar movies of its ilk is the performance from Jeff Goldblum as a greedy, crazed Yuppie drug dealer.
Laurence Fishburne deserves honorable mention here as well for his scene where he begins to spontaneously rap pseudo-Beat street poetry to another character in the film.Entertaining, but as previously mentioned, don't look too deeply into it..
The emotional dilemma he finds himself in becomes a bit more than he bargained for, as he finds himself drawn to the life he has tried so hard to reject.Jeff Goldblum perfectly plays the double-life, lawyer-partner character.Moody, tense film, with some harrowing, brutal scenes..
Deep Cover is Fish's third best performances of the early nineties behind Boyz N The Hood and What's Love Got To Do With It. The character he plays in Deep Cover is  a smooth cop who gets in over his head when he goes undercover.
Jeff Goldblum makea great bad guy and the direction by Bill Duke was also very good..
(Laurence Fishburne) was an ambitious police officer that wanted to help clean up the streets from its drug problem.
At some point it becomes unclear if he still had sight of the goal: get drugs off the street by taking down the head honchos.The movie was good for the most part and I really liked Jeff Goldblum who played lawyer/dealer David Jason.
Deep Cover won't make my list of top drug movies but it is entertaining to watch..
Good film, but the same old government cover-up of important V.I.P. drug dealers; double cross of the field cop by his friends; danger from street punks; gunplay and overdoses; good guy cop doesn't know who to trust or where to turn so starts playing both ends to the middle.
"Deep Cover" is all about a cop (Fishburn) who goes undercover as a narc and pretty much manages to help a little kid and rescue a babe while single handedly solving all of the West Coast drug trafficking problems.
Nonetheless, the "Deep Cover" did have an interesting noir moodiness with some philosophical narration by Fishburn and should make an enjoyable couch potato watch for those who are into gritty crime dramas.
His bad-guy role is great written and he plays great.The movie tells an interesting story with interesting characters of whom Fishburne and Goldblum are the best..
Jeff Goldblum was at the top of his game and I don't think I've seen a movie where Laurence Fishburne was sub-par.
DEEP COVER is a pretty predictable film about a cop going undercover to take down some drug lords, but in execution it turns out to be a fun little film and more entertaining than it has any right to be from that premise.
The underrated Laurence Fishburne is a fine choice for lead, playing a guy who must come to terms with what makes him a man while exploring the moral quandaries in which he finds himself.This is a film packed with that inimitable early '90s style, with lots of hard-edged violence and even a little humour thrown into the mix.
Drug lawyer David Jason (Jeff Goldblum) takes his case and introduces him to Gallegos.Laurence Fishburne and Jeff Goldblum are good.
Not really my kind of movie, but Fishburne and Goldblum were good.
As the movie opens, Laurence Fishburne's character, as a child, witnesses his drug addict father being shot and killed (apparently at Christmas), just after a Santa Claus says something you would never want him to say.
As an adult, Fishburne is a cop who wants nothing to do with drugs but he gets assigned to an undercover operation where he actually sells the stuff.
The movie starts to get a lot better when Jeff Goldblum's character, a lawyer, is introduced.
Another character I liked was a cop Fishburne called 'Reverend.'  The second half of the movie was not as good as the first, until about the last fifteen minutes, which ended up redeeming the movie for me.
But by that time the movie had gotten very confusing, because so many lies were being told you couldn't tell what was true any more.Fishburne and Goldblum gave good performances.
If the movie has any real significance, it is in the conflict Fishburne's character felt at knowing he was killing people, either directly or by selling drugs, in order to do good..
Laurence Fishburne plays a character somewhat like this.Here, we see Russell Stevens (Larry Fishburne, as he was called back then) as a much leaner and fast paced officer of the law who looked to make a difference in society.
But as much as it takes authoritarian corruption for granted, Deep Cover's attitude toward interracial sexual relations is at once fresh and unpretentious: As Jeff Goldblum's sleazy lawyer emerges from a black mistress's apartment quipping to Fishburne about the allure of exotic flesh, the film both confirms and renders ridiculous the sexual legend that, furtively, white men desire black women (and vice-versa).
Like so many other films about cops and bad guys, Deep Cover promised little else from what we were used to.
Deep Cover builds into the mythical from what seems like a simple cop story, while laying the psychology of its protagonist Russell Stevens, Jr.
Russell, renamed John by DEA agent Gerald Carver (Charles Martin Smith) to engage his undercover operation, braves misadventure and danger to work his way into the mid-level drug operation of David Jason (Jeff Goldblum).
But John must brave Hell to reach his goal, which is introduced to him by the superior agent Carver who says he's "God." A truly fascinating scene in the film comes due to masculine grudgery between Jason and drug dealer Felix Barbosa (Gregory Sierra).
David Jason's worldview could best be described as forcedly Edenic, whereas John Hull's plot at the film's end shows thought of Utopian character.
(a commanding and outstanding performance by Laurence Fishburne) takes a dangerous undercover assignment posing as a dope pusher in order to bust some major league drug dealers.
The story could sound as a cliché along the lines of "all i wanted was to do good as a cop but they turned me into a drug dealer." But it is not cliché at all.
There were probably plot holes, but I missed them - I was busy enjoying the movie.--- end spoilers --- This film is too dark for children and even early teens, but for the rest of the world it is a thought-inducing and worthy film, as a drama, a social/political critique and as a thriller/action/cop flick..
The supporting cast are equally impressive- and like all great noir films, each character is realistically flawed.....with the exception of Clarence Williams' honest detective (who winds up paying the ultimate price for being a good man in an evil, corrupt world in a devastating climax) there are no heroes here, just different shades of bad- I've rarely seen a film with such a cynical view of the police/law enforcement, and the villains- from Jeff Goldblum's greedy and amoral lawyer to Gregory Sierra's truly terrifying mid level dealer- are shown as even worse.
And, in perhaps the films most knowing line of dialogue, when Goldblum's character states to the Latin American Guzman "there's no black, Hispanic or white anymore.....just rich and poor, and we're all rich so we should be on the same side"- well doesn't that say it all- not just about drugs and the war against them, but about unfettered free market capitalism in general?
He gets in the organization from the bottom, and starts climbing up the crime ladder, and eventually manages to bust and/or kill all of them, save a little kid, and get the babe.What makes this film good is, of course, Laurence Fishburne in the lead, and his narrative capabilities.
**Possible Spoilers**		 Strong performances by Laurence Fishburne and Jeff Goldblum dominate this story of a cop who goes undercover as a drug dealer, in order to `Do some good,' in `Deep Cover,' directed by Bill Duke.
Twenty years later, Russell (Fishburne) is a cop, making good on the promise he made to himself the day he watched his father die; he wasn't going to end up like that.
This is a decent action film with a pretty good story, but there isn't much here that hasn't been done before; what sets this one apart from many others like it, however, are the two stars.
I like these kind of movies(DARK BLUE,TRAINING DAY,NARC) and this one is no exception.Very good paced,strong performances and an interesting story line make this a winner.
Fishburne is good,but I think Goldblum`s performance is terrific!
But its an entertaining movie with lots of shooting and also good music(and I like rock),together with good performances and convincing bad guys.