Prime Video’s new action comedy, Deep Cover, has a great high-concept premise, as the Met hires a trio of improv performers to work on undercover sting operations. It goes back to Reservoir Dogs’ ᴀssertion that undercover cops have “gotta be Marlon Brando.” They need to embody a character, convince their audience they’re someone else, and roll with the unexpected twists and turns of an unpredictable scenario. Who’s better-suited to that job than an improviser?

The movie establishes exactly who all the characters are within 10 minutes. Nick Mohammed plays Hugh, a timid, painfully awkward underdog with atrocious social skills, the same role he played to perfection as Nate the Great in Ted Lᴀsso. Bryce Dallas Howard plays Kat, a brilliant improv teacher who’s supportive of her students and knows the ins and outs of the craft of improv, but had much bigger dreams that didn’t pan out. Orlando Bloom plays Marlon, an out-of-work actor who feels like he’s capable of delivering Pacino-style intensity, but only seems to get auditions for commercials selling frozen pizzas and E.D. pills.

It’s wonderfully economic screenwriting. It doesn’t waste any time, it doesn’t sacrifice any laughs for the sake of story setup, and it conveys all the information we need through the characters’ actions and interactions instead of dry exposition. Marlon is dropped by his agent, Kat is openly pitied by her friends, and Hugh makes disastrous attempts to joke around with his co-workers. Sean Bean makes for a hilariously ᴅᴇᴀᴅpan foil as their handler, and Paddy Considine and Ian McShane have a ton of fun hamming it up as the villains.

Deep Cover Wrings Plenty Of Great Gags Out Of Its Premise

It Gets The Plot Underway Nice & Quickly

By the 20-minute mark, the plot is in full swing. The improvisers are sent into a corner shop with the simple task of buying counterfeit cigarettes. Through their use of yes, and…, a popular improv rule, they accidentally stumble into a much larger criminal enterprise. At the midpoint, they’re introduced to the big boss and suddenly find themselves in a ᴅᴇᴀᴅly world where anyone caught informing the police is gruesomely killed to make an example.

But as the movie goes on, the plot never really escalates. The characters get into danger, narrowly escape danger, talk about how they’re not prepared for danger and need to get away from the danger, then get right back into danger. Rinse and repeat. There’s an interesting twist in the second act, but I saw it coming (and I almost never see plot twists coming).

A lot of streaming-exclusive comedies drag out their gags for too long because there’s no incentive to тιԍнтen up the runtime. But Deep Cover keeps its gags going for as many laughs as they’re worth before moving on. When Hugh tries to refuse a bump of cocaine from a crime boss, the boss thinks he wants a full line, so he’s forced to do a full line.

Then, he’s forced to take a second, and a third, and then the scene is interrupted by the next plot beat. Hugh didn’t want to go near the coke, so it gets funnier and funnier with each line that’s presented to him. But if it kept going on indefinitely, it would’ve eventually gotten old. Comedy comes in threes, and three lines was the sweet spot to get the maximum laughs without wearing out the joke.

The Screenwriters’ Self-Inserts Are The Weakest Parts Of Deep Cover

Ben Ashenden & Alexander Owen Can’t Help Cramming Bits Into All Their Scenes

The weakest parts of the film are when the screenwriters themselves show up onscreen. The movie was the brainchild of Jurᴀssic World’s Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow, but the final draft was written by Ben Ashenden and Alexander Owen, a comedy double act collectively known as “The Pin.” Ashenden and Owen appear in the cast as detectives on the trail of the three improvisers.

They’re supposed to be the straight men delivering necessary exposition, but they can’t help themselves from cramming as many bits into their scenes as possible — especially Owen, who dissects every line that comes out of his mouth. He can’t just say, “Stop! Police!” and be done with it; he has to clarify that he’s the police telling them to stop, not that they should stop the police. Sometimes, a supporting actor burdened with exposition can break out and steal the show — see Michael Peña in the Ant-Man movies — but here, it feels forced.

Deep Cover is at its best when its three lead improvisers are in way over their heads in absurdly dangerous situations they’re completely unequipped for, whether they’re being chased by a machete-wielding street gang or sent to a morgue to chop up a corpse. It might be pretty forgettable, but thanks to its stellar lead actors — especially Bloom, who goes full psycho in the guise of a career criminal — it’s a fun ride.