Deep Cover is directed by Bill Duke and written by Michael Tolkin and Henry Bean. It stars Larry Fishburne, Jeff Goldblum, Charles Martin Smith, Victoria Dillard and Gregory Sierra. Music is by Michel Colombier and cinematography by Bojan Bazelli.

Traumatised as a youngster by the death of his junkie father, Russell Stevens (Fishburne) becomes a police officer. Passing an interview with DEA Agent Gerald Carver (Smith),Stevens goes undercover to bust a major drug gang that has links to high places. But the closer he gets in with the targets, the deeper he gets involved - emotionally and psychologically.

A splendid slice of gritty neo-noir, Deep Cover follows a classic film noir theme of a man descending into a world he really shouldn't be part of. This is a shifty and grungy Los Angeles, awash with blood money, single parents prepared to sell their kids, where kids in their early teens mule for the dealers and get killed in the process. A place of dimly lighted bars and pool halls, of dank streets and scrap yards, and of course of violence and misery.

The look and tone of the picture is as intense as the characterisations on show. Duke (A Rage in Harlem) knows some tricks to imbue psychological distortion, canted angles, step-print framing, slow angled lensing, jump cuts and sweaty close ups. Bazelli photographs with a deliberate urban feel, making red prominent and black a lurking menace. While the musical accompaniments flit in between hip-hop thunder and jazzy blues lightning.

Fishburne provides a narration that works exceptionally well, harking back to classic noirs of yesteryear. As this grim tale unfolds, his distressingly down-beat tone goes hand in hand with the narrative's sharp edges. 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. 8/10

Artfully presented and blunt in its social critique, there is something deliciously honest about the undercover cop film, this being an ideal example of no-bullshit brio, starring "Larry" Fishburne as a dour L.A. agent who goes undercover to take down a Colombian drug syndicate. When he was a boy, Fishburne witnessed his father gunned down in a bungled liquor store bust; as an adult, he abstains from alcohol and drugs, and wears an impassive mien to keep the world at a safe distance. He's rigid, uncompromising, resentful of authority—he's the perfect mole, as his boss says (a squirrelly, race-baiting Charles Martin Smith),"because he fits the profile of a criminal."

Once under, the plot provocatively centers on the agonizing moral compromises Fishburne must make and his realization that right and wrong is relative to the power of the almighty dollar. Deeply cynical about the government's purported "War on Drugs"—at one point even implicating the president by name—the film sees it as just another white power structure profiting from, and fueling, a largely minority industry; honest cops and citizens pay the price for this malfeasance, an imbalance Fishburne eventually exploits with aplomb. 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). Instead of giggling around the issue, the film promotes this coupling as a reality, thereby reveling in the adolescent quest for exoticism and proving it a ridiculous affectation; in other words, "Get off your ass, white boy. It's no big deal." Deep Cover is also a showcase for Fishburne to prove his mettle as a leading man. He's consistently captivating, evincing the inner torment, sensitivity, and moral indecision so rare for protagonists in this sub-genre—this should have been the role that made him one of America's leading men.

Only toward the end does this hot-wire ride start to become cluttered with self-conscious gravity—Fishburne's voice-over starts to ring false when he drops stilted religious analogies—but this is for the most part a smart, dark, socially conscious thriller with the persuasive feel of noir.

Shrewd, but angry and troubled police officer Russell Stevens, Jr. (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. Russell forms an uneasy alliance with high-strung and out of his depth Jewish lawyer and dealer David Jason (a splendidly twitchy Jeff Goldblum) in order to nail ruthless drug kingpin Felix Barbosa (a deliciously nasty portrayal by Gregory Sierra) and a few other biggies. Director Bill Duke, working from a sharp and incisive script by Michael Tolkin and Henry Bean, relates the gripping story at a constant snappy pace, expertly creates an extremely edgy and intense atmosphere, punctuates the narrative with shocking moments of brutal violence, and stages the rousing action set pieces with rip-snorting aplomb. Better still, this film offers a trenchant critique on America's hypocritical war on drugs, the fierce class and racial conflicts raging in every substratum of American culture, the fine line between cops and criminals, personal morality (or lack thereof),and the ferocious things one must do to realize one's grand ambitions in the criminal underworld. The uniformly terrific acting from the top-rate cast rates as another significant asset: Fishburne and Goldblum are exceptional in the leads, with sterling support from Victoria Dillard as the cool, sultry Betty, Charles Martin Smith as Russell's wormy superior Carver, Claurence Williams III as zealous religious fanatic cop Taft, Sydney Lassick as Felix's effeminate toady Gopher, Roger Guenveur Smith as slimy, antsy flunky Eddie, and Glynn Turman as Russell's doomed junkie father. The dialogue crackles with raw profane wit. Bojan Bazelli's glossy cinematography boasts lots of great striking film noir-style lighting. Michel Columbier's funky-bumping score hits the groovy spot. All this -- and a marvelously ambivalent ending, too. A total powerhouse.