Deep Cover is a 2025 British action-comedy film about a trio of improv actors recruited by police to go undercover in London’s criminal underworld, released June 12, 2025.
Kat Boyles, a down-on-her-luck improv comedy teacher, is approached by Detective Sergeant Graham Billings to assemble a fake “criminal” team for a sting. She enlists two of her students: Marlon Swift, a method-like aspiring actor, and Hugh, a timid tech worker. Their first assignment is to bust a shop selling counterfeit cigarettes, which leads them to Fly, a mid-level gangster.
Read also: STRAW – LATEST NETFLIX PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA
When Fly tries to offload a bag of stolen cocaine on the trio, Kat improvises a clever con: she tricks a rival Albanian gang into buying back their own stolen drugs. Impressed by this ruthless ruse, Fly recruits Kat, Marlon and Hugh into his crew, and Billings encourages them to continue the undercover charade.
Now operating under criminal aliases, the trio dives deeper into Fly’s organization. In one incident, they threaten a local dealer named Sagar (Omid Djalili); Sagar panics, flees and accidentally falls to his death. The police, unaware of the undercover operation, mistake this for an execution by professional hitmen, which inadvertently boosts Kat’s team’s credibility as real criminals. They’re soon sent to negotiate another deal with a rival gang, but the plan goes awry. During this time, Kat discovers that Billings – her police handler – has been using them to cover up his own deals. When she confronts him, Billings’s double-dealing is exposed, and he is quickly shot dead by Shosh in the street.
Read also: MONKEY MAN – INDIAN ACTION MOVIE REVIEW
Billings’s death triggers a crisis among London’s gangs. Fly’s boss, Metcalfe, seizes Billings’s phone to trace the undercover agents and orders Fly to kill them. Recognizing that Kat’s team are mere amateurs (not hardened criminals), Fly instead quietly lets them escape. Shortly afterward, the police do arrest the trio – but without proof of any real crime, the charges fall apart. To end the chaos, Kat hatches a plan: she persuades Fly to cooperate with law enforcement. In exchange for immunity from prosecution, Fly agrees to wear a hidden microphone (a “wire”) at a setup meeting with the rival Albanian gang.
Read also: HIT: The Third Case – NETFLIX INDIAN ACTION MOVIE
In the climactic sting, Kat, Marlon and Hugh are on the scene to protect Fly as the police swarm the meeting. Metcalfe himself arrives and is killed by Shosh during the shootout, after which Shosh vanishes. Fly is astonished to learn that Kat’s crew are actually improv comedians, not hitmen. Grateful for the rescue, he quietly pays them a share of the proceeds. In the aftermath, the trio go their separate ways: Marlon goes after his acting dreams, Hugh opens a wine shop, and Kat’s improv classes become more popular than ever amid rumors of her undercover exploits. Throughout it all, Detective Inspector Dawes quietly continues the investigation, struggling to piece together how the seemingly random crimes all fit together.
Read also: A WIDOW’S GAME – NETFLIX MOVIE REVIEW
Director: Tom Kingsley
Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard, Orlando Bloom, Nick Mohammed, Paddy Considine, Ian McShane, Sean Bean, Sonoya Mizuno and Omid Djalili, among others
Runtime: 100 minutes
Watch trailer here.
