DEEP COVER (1992)

As so often the case, unsung director Bill Duke can't put a foot wrong in this undercover cop story.  Laurence Fishburne is the regular beat cop recruited by Charles Martin Smith’s Fed NARCO to plant in the West Coast drug trade, embedded deep in the organization so he can rise to expose the top California supplier.  Two problems: ONE: to get there, he’ll have to play the game for real as an insider; TWO: by the time he gets to the guy, he’ll be no different than the men he’s been stealth hunting.  Nothing original there, but Duke makes it feel fresh and suspenseful with cross-play between the corrupt and the corruptible.  A distinction that certainly includes Washington, apt to change who they want to take down depending on changes in Central American governments.  Scripter Michael Tolkin (just off THE PLAYER/’92) fills in Fishburne’s character with a father’s death, a surrogate son, a romance with a beautiful art gallery manager/money launderer, but mostly with a bromance with partner in crime Jeff Goldblum, reminding you he can do a lot more than recycle Jeff Goldblum tics.*  These two a fascinating double act; straight, but with sexual voltage steaming out of their ears.  It leads to a veritable liebestod of a finale where Fishburne confesses he’s working for the Feds and Goldblum confessing how it needn’t change the relationship.  They might be Jack Lemmon and Joe E. Brown at the end of SOME LIKE IT HOT/’59, when Lemmon pulls off the wig and says ‘Because I’m a guy,’ and a still smitten Joe E. Brown replies, ’ Well, nobody’s perfect.’  Except this is no comedy.  Technical chops, brilliant stylized use of color, relentless pacing, no dull content, standout perfs, how does Duke pull these things off so consistently?

DOUBLE-BILL:   Now in his 80s, Duke remains active as actor & director.  Best known for Urban Crime pics and ‘quality’ series tv, his first feature-length work, THE KILLING ROOM/’83 already a near classic.  It can be tricky to find since it was made for PBS American Playhouse, and is often listed under the series’ title.  Complex and sophisticated filmmaking on the beginnings of the Chicago Meat Workers Union, and how racial issues affected work relations before and after WWI.  Why Duke never gets mentioned as a pioneering Black filmmaker is beyond me.  Maybe he was just too good to need that sort of special pleading.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:   *Goldblum quite the clotheshorse in this film.  But then, he probably wears them as well as any male star since Rex Harrison in UNFAITHFULLY YOURS back in 1948.