Deep Cover [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Bill Duke, Conrad E. Palmisano Bill Duke

Overview

Laurence Fishburne plays no-nonsense LAPD narc Russell Stevens, Jr., who has worked all his life to expunge the memory of his dope-addict father, whom he saw die in a liquor-store robbery. DEA agent Jerry Carver (Charles Martin Smith) orders Stevens to work as an undercover operative on a major case. The cop is to pose as a dealer in order to get the goods on South American drug lord. Stevens is so convincing as a dealer, that he fast works his way up through the ranks and gains the trust of lawyer and narcotics dealer David Jason (Jeff Goldblum) and his sinister associates, all lackeys to the kingpin who is the target of Stevens' assignment. Through a series of fantastic but credible circumstances, Stevens eliminates the lower echelon, getting closer to his quarry, but in the process he finds himself so deep into the sinister and seductive world of the drug trade that he may never get out. In a surprise move, and just when he is about to bring the ringleader down, the DEA pulls the plug on his assignment, because the top dealer, an influential Latin American politician, may someday be useful to the State Department.

Product Details

Release Date:	07/13/2021
UPC:	0715515261616
Original Release:	1992
Rating:	R
Source:	Criterion Collection
Language:	English
Time:	1:47:00
Sales rank:	8,879

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Jeff Goldblum	David Jason
Victoria Dillard	Betty
Charles Martin Smith	Carver,Eddie,Video Dealer
Clarence Williams III	Taft
Gregory Sierra	Barbosa
Cory Curtis	Russel Jr.
Rene Assa	Hector Guzman
Alex Colon	Molto
Sydney Lassick	Gopher,Gopher
Def Jef	Bartender
Lionel Matthews	Officer Winston
Kamala Lopez	Belinda
Julio Oscar Mechoso	Hernandez
James T. Morris	Ivy
Arthur Mendozo	Gallegos
Sandra Gould	Mrs. G.
Glynn Turman	Russell Stevens Sr.
Laurence Fishburne	Russell Stevens Jr. / John Hull
Tyrin Turner	Dealer
Yvette Heyden	Nancy
Ron Thompson	Guard
Donald Bishop	Judge
Ric Mancini	Congressman
Anna Berger	Congresswoman
Clifton Powell	Leland
Jaime Cardriche	Shark
John Shepherd	Undercover Cop
Tony Pérez	Guzman's Lawyer
Mike Radner	Coroner
Alisa Christensen	Ivy's Driver
Nick LaTour	Republican Congressman
Harry Frazier	Lunatic Santa
Clarence Williams	Actor
Michel Colombier	Composer

Technical Credits

Henry Bean

Michael Tolkin

Daryl Haney

Bill Duke	Director
Henry Bean	Producer,Screenwriter
Pierre David	Producer
David Streit	Executive Producer,Producer
Michael Tolkin	Screenwriter
Conrad E. Palmisano	Director
Thomas Baer	Producer
Daryl Haney	Screenwriter
Michael DeLuca	Producer

Editorial Reviews

What could have been just another crime thriller becomes a startlingly effective neo-noir, charged with a sublime racial outrage. Deep Cover's racial politics give the film a complex, world-weary subtext so crucial to a noir. They start with Laurence Fishburne's character, doomed to a life in the drug world he's quietly desperate to escape. They continue with the anti-Semitism Jeff Goldblum's David Jason suffers with his Hispanic partners, who are bitterly aware of the racism shutting them out of legitimate business. Of the police in the picture, one (Clarence Williams III) is black and near saintly; the other (Alex Colon) is Italian and corrupt. The movie's dénouement presents Charles Martin Smith -- in the movie's sole WASP role -- as all-knowing ("I'm God" is his refrain) but powerless to infiltrate -- and ultimately indifferent to -- the film's minority-dominated world of drugs. Director Bill Duke's knowing take on the collateral destructiveness of the "war on drugs" places his film with Menace II Society, Boyz 'N the Hood, Fresh, and Juice as one of the keynote black film movement works of the late '80s and early '90s. It also establishes Fishburne (just plain old "Larry" in the credits) as a black leading man on par with Denzel Washington and Wesley Snipes. Yet Deep Cover is no civics lesson: Duke fluidly handles several revved up action sequences and pays homage to groundbreaking '70s minority artists by casting Williams, Gregory Sierra, and Rene Assa in key roles. (Also watch for Sidney Lassick of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest fame.)

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