Back in college, I dipped my toe into the unpredictable world of improv acting, which is to say, I was once coerced into participating in a classroom performance called 12 Angry-ish Jurors. Picture the classic courtroom drama, but with far fewer rehearsals (zero), wildly inconsistent accents (hey… it’s the South), and one guy (me) who kept breaking character because he thought it’d be hilarious to play his juror as a Southern preacher with a gambling addiction.

It was not. The professor cried during intermission. I call that a win.

My big improv moment came when I accidentally accused the bailiff of being the Zodiac Killer — mid-scene, mid-trial and entirely unplanned. The students in the classroom laughed, though mostly because someone’s phone rang at the exact moment I screamed, “Check his tattoos!”

Despite the chaos, there was a strange adrenaline rush in not knowing what came next, in tossing logic out the window and riding the wave of pure, unfiltered reaction. I tell you this not to impress you (clearly), but to explain why Deep Cover hit a nostalgic nerve — and why I felt strangely seen watching Bryce Dallas Howard and Orlando Bloom try to improv their way through a drug sting gone sideways.

Deep Cover is an action-comedy starring Bryce Dallas Howard, who plays Kat, a stand-up comedian moonlighting as an improv teacher in London. Her relatively tame life takes a sharp turn when she’s approached by grizzled Detective Sgt. Graham Billings (Sean Bean), who needs actors for a series of low-level undercover stings. Kat ropes in two of her students: Marlon (Bloom) and Hugh (Nick Mohammed).

Though their operation begins with a fake cigarette operation, the trio miraculously earns the trust of a mid-level drug boss named Fly (Paddy Considine) and soon find themselves climbing the criminal ladder. As the stakes rise, they come face-to-face with Metcalfe (Ian McShane), the brutal top dog of London’s drug trade. But as the lies pile up and their improvisation falters, the line between performance and reality blurs — and their shot at getting out clean grows slimmer by the day.

Ian McShane as METCALFE in DEEP COVER. Credit: Lara Cornell / © 2025 COPERTURA PRODUCTIONS LTD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Let me be clear: this movie shouldn’t work. The premise is bonkers. The tone walks a tightrope between a Guy Ritchie crime caper and an extended Whose Line Is It Anyway? sketch. And yet, somehow, it hits the mark more often than not, thanks entirely to the comedic chemistry of its core trio. Howard brings grounded chaos to her role, striking that perfect balance between leader and reluctant babysitter. Bloom leans into his character’s delusions with surprising comedic chops and Mohammed steals nearly every scene he’s in — his breakdown during a pretend drug deal is Oscar-worthy, if the Oscars gave out trophies for funniest panic attack.

There’s also Sean Bean, who shows up with all the gravitas of a man who’s been blown up, stabbed and catapulted out of existence in more films than I can count. Without spoiling anything, let’s just say Bean once again brings his trademark “Oh no, he’s in this? Uh, oh” energy to the proceedings.

Director Tom Kingsley proves he knows how to juggle absurdity and tension like a pro. He keeps the pacing tight, the set pieces just chaotic enough, and the tone dancing on a wire between laugh-out-loud comedy and genuine suspense. The action is slick but never showy, and the humor doesn’t deflate the stakes — it sharpens them. Kingsley has a real knack for letting character-driven comedy breathe without losing the narrative momentum, and that balance is what makes Deep Cover more than just another oddball concept — it makes it sing.

Deep Cover isn’t a perfect movie. It stumbles a bit in the third act and occasionally tries to juggle too many tonal shifts at once. But it’s a smart, funny, surprisingly tense ride with real heart behind its absurd premise. It’s not often you get a crime comedy that lets its characters be funny and flawed and human. Even some of the criminals in the film show that they have some humanity, which seems to be missing from many crime dramas.

I give Deep Cover a solid four out of five stars. It’s a wild, weird mix of improv comedy and gritty crime drama, and against all odds, it lands. Watching it brought me back — strangely enough — to that singular chaotic day in the college, when no one knew what was coming next and we were all just trying to stay in character long enough to get to the next scene. That same frantic energy pulses through this movie, except now there are drug cartels, car chases and the looming presence of Ian McShane instead of a professor who kept insisting “there are no wrong choices” (spoiler alert: there were definitely wrong choices).

The difference is that in Deep Cover, the actors are improvising not just for laughs, but for their lives — and that gives the comedy an edge I wasn’t expecting. It’s a reminder that sometimes the best performances come when you’re out of your depth and making it up as you go. And hey, if I had Sean Bean giving me notes back then, maybe 12 Angry-ish Jurors would’ve turned out just as entertaining. Or at least more coherent.