“Deep Cover”, which was released on Amazon Prime in last week, generates laughs from its outrageous story premise as much as possible, and I enjoyed that. While this is another typical “fish-out-of-water” comedy film, the movie shows more wit and humor than expected, and it will certainly make you giggle or chuckle more than once (Full Disclosure: I did).

At first, we are introduced to its three different main characters: Kat (Bryce Dallas Howard), Marlon (Orlando Bloom), and Hugh (Nick Mohammed). While Kat is a struggling stand-up American comedian who works as an improvisation theater teacher in London, Marlon is an unemployed method actor who often takes his acting a bit too seriously, and Hugh is a meek IT worker who desperately wants to be, well, funny.

Not long after Marlon and Hugh join Kat’s improvisation theater, Kat is approached by a cop who gives an offer she cannot refuse. The cop wants Kat and two other performers to help his little sting operations, and Kat accepts the offer because 1) she and her fellow performers will be paid enough for each operation and 2) she surely needs some challenge at present. Although Marlon and Hugh are not exactly ideal acting partners for her, she persuades them to join her in this risky but interesting acting challenge, and they soon embark on their first sting operation.

Of course, Kat and her acting partners do not click that well with each other at first, but then they find some chemistry among them, and then they deliver a much bigger success than their handler expected. They subsequently find themselves involved with a number of important criminal figures, and that is where their handler pushes them into more challenge. Now they have to be undercover agents for him, and Kat and her acting partners must take much more risk than before as approaching to their main target.

Steadily maintaining the enough level of tension along the story, the screenplay by Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly, Ben Ashenden, and Alexander Owen has a lot of fun with how Kat and her acting partners manage to survive via their improvisation skill. While Kat is usually the one who sets the ground for their acting, Marlon holds the ground with his total professional commitment, and Hugh surprises himself as well as his acting partners as demonstrating that he is actually a good actor. In fact, he is so good in his improvisation that he somehow makes himself look really like a dangerous criminal, and that leads him to an unlikely chance of romance, though he can be killed at any moment if he is not careful.

Meanwhile, the movie gradually raises the stake for its three main characters as they eventually meet their main target, who is incidentally one of the most powerful and dangerous criminal figures in the town. This figure in question shows them that he is definitely not someone to mess with, and Kat and her acting partners become all the more nervous as their situation becomes a lot more complicated and perilous than expected.

Nonetheless, the movie does not lose any sense of humor while continuing to generate more laugh and amusement for us. At one point, Kat and her acting partners are tasked with handling the aftermath of a killing just because they are supposed to be hardcore criminals, and we are amused by how much they struggle to hide their frantic desperation from their criminal associates. I was also tickled by Kat’s very awkward (and risky) encounter with her friends at one point in the story, and that leads to one of the most hilarious moments later in the film,

Like any good comedy film, the movie depends a lot on the good comic timing among its main performers, who are funny and engaging in each own way as deftly generating the comic momentum among them. While Bryce Dallas Howard imbues her character with enough pluck and charm, Orlando Bloom, who seems to become more interesting as he is aging away from his famous role in Peter Jackson’s the Lord of the Rings trilogy, demonstrates the unexpected side of his acting talent, and Nick Mohammed, who has been more notable thanks to his Emmy-nominated supporting turn in Apple TV+ comedy series “Ted Lasso”, holds his own place well between his two co-stars.

In addition, the movie places a bunch of recognizable performers here and there in the story. As a criminal who turns to have some soft heart, Paddy Considine has his own small comic moments, and so is Sonoya Mizuno, who was memorable in her small but crucial supporting performance in Alex Garland’s “Ex Machina” (2014). In case of Sean Bean and Ian McShane, they surely know well how to play their seedy archetype roles as veteran performers, and McShane gladly chews every moment of his in addition to exuding enough menace as required.

In conclusion, “Deep Cover”, which should not be confused with Bill Duke’s 1992 film “Deep Cover”, is a solid comedy movie packed with enough wit and humor, and director Tom Kingsley, who previously made “Black Fond” (2011) and “The Darkest Universe” (2016), did a commendable job on the whole. In short, this is one of the better products from the major streaming services during this year, and you will not be disappointed if you just want to have some big laughs.