Deep Cover: Hilariously perilous role-playing

Deep Cover (2025) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for violence, drug use and frequent profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang

This film’s premise is irresistible, and the execution is a hoot.

 

The four scripters — Derek Connolly, Colin Trevorrow, Ben Ashenden and Alexander Owen — concocted a sharp comedy thriller with plenty of mirthful, rat-a-tat dialogue. Director Tom Kingsley and editor Mark Williams maintain a lively pace, and Daniel Pemberton’s score adds just the right flourish.

 

Fly (Paddy Considine, far left) is impressed by what his new colleagues — from left,
Kat (Bryce Dallas Howard), Hugh (Nick Mohammed) and Marlon (Orlando Bloom) —
have accomplished ... even if he doesn't entirely trust them.

The casting is inspired, and the players inhabit their parts with élan. At first blush, the three stars seem like unlikely collaborators, but they deftly play to each other’s strengths.

Kat (Bryce Dallas Howard), a wannabe stand-up comic, has taken solace in leading improv lessons for other would-be superstars; she’s sweet, patient and nurturing. One of her students is the über-serious Marlon (Orlando Bloom), who has embraced Stanislavski’s method approach to an unfortunate degree, and believes himself the next Robert De Niro. Even so, the poor guy can’t do better than TV commercials.

 

Elsewhere, shy IT wonk Hugh (Nick Mohammed) hasn’t the faintest concept of social skills, and frequently is ridiculed by his co-workers. He stumbles into Kat’s class one day, hoping to learn the fine art of casual conversation, and become more at ease with himself.

 

Unknown to all, Kat and her students have been observed by veteran London police officer Billings (Sean Bean), who has hatched an audacious plan for a sting operation. Knowing that bad guys can smell undercover cops a mile away, Billings proposes that Kat, Marlon and Hugh work as a team to help nail small-potatoes criminals selling knock-off cigarettes.

 

Intrigued by the challenge — and also excited by the low-level danger — they agree.

 

When they show up the next day, Kat has tarted up, going for tough-chick street sleaze, accompanied by a sassy attitude. Marlon looks, sounds and behaves like a dangerous mob enforcer, while Nick ... looks like himself. Which is to say, a nerdy accountant, prompting a long-suffering sigh from Billings.

 

Their assignment is simple: Stroll into a nearby bodega, ask the guy behind the counter for the “cheap stuff,” complete the purchase, and depart.

 

What could possibly go wrong?

 

Quite a lot, as events go down, because Kat and Marlon are too eager to go off-book, repeatedly relying on her “Yes, and...?” class exercise. As a result, they snag an invite to make a major buy from local drug baron Fly (Paddy Considine), which exasperates and delights Billings.

 

But although Kat and Marlon look and sound like who they’re supposed to be, Fly regards Hugh warily, questioning his appearance. “That’s why we call him Squire,” Kat quickly interjects, while Hugh smiles awkwardly.

 

In a film laden with laugh-out-loud moments, none is funnier than Mohammed’s nervous body language and mounting terror, when Fly insists that Hugh test the purity of the product.

Kung Fu Panda 4: Fun and frenetic

Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG, for scary images and mild rude humor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

The folks at DreamWorks animation deserve considerable credit; they keep finding clever ways to inject fresh life into a franchise that began as little more than a one-note visual gag.

 

(A panda becoming a kung fu expert? Seriously?)

 

Following a rough ocean voyage, Po and Zhen get their first glimpse of bustling
Juniper City. Po wouldn't be so excited, if he knew what was coming...

Thanks to an inventive script by Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger and Darren Lemke — along with sharp, rat-a-tat dialogue delivered with great comic timing by the voice cast — this is Po’s best adventure since his debut, back in 2008.

Directors Mike Mitchell and Stephanie Stine, with an able assist from editor Christopher Knights, ensure that this 94-minute romp never slumps. Indeed, the length feels perfect; all concerned know when to get off the stage, on a crowd-pleasing high.

 

This new film’s premise is perfect: After three death-defying adventures involving world-class villains and amazing martial arts moves, Po (voiced by Jack Black) is told by Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) that it’s time to give it a rest. It’s time for Po to assume a greater role as Spiritual Leader of the Valley of Peace ... which means finding and training a new Dragon Warrior, before he can assume this lofty position.

 

Alas, Po has no interest in giving up his mad kung fu exploits as the current Dragon Master. More to the point, he hasn’t the faintest notion of what his new role might involve. (Spiritual Leader? Sounds like a snooze!) Po also is unwilling to abandon the love-fest adulation emanating from the many animal denizens of the Valley of Peace, particularly since he has concocted so many ways to franchise himself (much to Master Shifu’s disapproval).

 

Adoptive goose dad Mr. Ping (James Hong) and panda birth dad Li (Bryan Cranston) offer encouragement, but they can’t help Po find enlightenment.

 

He’s briefly distracted while catching a cloaked thief who tries to steal valuables from the sacred palace; after a brief skirmish, Po is able to put this nimble, wisecracking intruder — a Corsac fox named Zhen (Awkwafina) — behind bars.

 

(At this point, savvy viewers will have a pretty good idea how this story will conclude, but that doesn’t diminish the delights along the way.)

 

Potential Dragon Master tryouts are interrupted when Po learns that a nearby water buffalo quarry has been terrorized and taken over by raging snow leopard Tai Lung (Ian McShane), Shifu’s former student and arch-nemesis. But wait ... wasn’t Tai Lung soundly defeated back in the first film, and banished to a golden-hued afterlife?

 

All is not what it seems ... and — wouldn’t you know it — Zhen has some answers.

John Wick: Should be snuffed out

John Wick (2014) • View trailer 
No stars (turkey). Rated R, for relentlessly strong, bloody and gory violence, profanity and brief drug use
By Derrick Bang

Vile, reprehensible trash.

Ineptly scripted, badly directed and atrociously acted by the name “star” — Keanu Reeves — who, as one of this tawdry turkey’s executive producers, likely is the only reason it got made in the first place.

Having reached this point in his vengeance-fueled crusade, Wick (Keanu Reeves) hasn't
killed anybody for at least 5 seconds ... so it must be time to shoot another nameless
thug in the face. Wick does that a lot, to rapidly diminishing returns.

The fact that Reeves keeps getting assignments remains a source of amazement; he can’t emote a lick. Indeed, he makes Clint Eastwood look like Laurence Olivier. Reeves lucked into two popular genre franchises awhile back, Speed and the Matrix trilogy, which granted the illusion of A-list credibility.

But everything else he has touched in the past 20 years has bombed, in most cases with ample cause. Really, now ... have you even heard of Hard Ball, Ellie Parker, Thumbsucker, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Generation Um... or Man of Tai Chi, let alone had the opportunity to actually watch them? Could anything have been worse that his laughably pathetic efforts at romantic leads, in A Walk in the Clouds or the ill-advised remake of Sweet November?

Is it perhaps time to wonder how much better both Speed and the Matrix movies might have been, with a better lead actor?

Reeves never offers anything beyond a grim scowl apparently intended to convey a wealth of emotion. Far from it; he simply seems smug and contemptuous ... and not necessarily within the parameters of the part he’s playing. It looks, sounds and feels more like a deliberate absence of acting: a smirky sense of superiority, as if he’s delighted to once again make a pot of money for doing no work whatsoever.

I’m not sure which would be worse: that Reeves knows he has scant talent, and keeps trying to fool us into believing otherwise ... or that he truly has no talent at all, but has failed to recognize as much. Still. All these years later.

He also needs to wash his hair more often. And get a better style to begin with.

Sadly, when it comes to no-talent behavior, Reeves has plenty of company in this revolting excuse for a revenge thriller. John Wick is “directed” — and I employ the term in the loosest possible sense — by David Leitch and Chad Stahelski, both of whom have impressively long Hollywood résumés ... as stunt and action coordinators.

Leitch and Stahelski apparently believed that they had learned something, operating under the guidance of other directors for the past two decades.

They believed incorrectly.

Jack the Giant Slayer: A massive disappointment

Jack the Giant Slayer (2013) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rating: PG-13, for intense fantasy action violence, frightening images and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang

We’ve recently had two rounds of Snow White, not to mention re-imagined takes on Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel, and now Warner Bros. has taken a crack at Jack and his beanstalk.

What’s next ... Clever Hans? The Fox and the Geese?

After Jack (Nicholas Hoult, right) comes up with a clever plan to distract a giant that is
blocking their escape, the stalwart lad and his companions — Elmont (Ewan McGregor)
and Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson) wait to see if the scheme will work.

Hollywood’s current fascination with fairy tales seems a logical next step after spinning so much box-office gold from comic book superheroes, but one does wish for material that’s more mature, rather than less. Aside from its marvelous CGI giants — and one helluva weed — Jack the Giant Slayer is a curiously clumsy and vacuous affair.

The screenplay — a patchwork affair credited to Darren Lemke, David Dobkin, Christopher McQuarrie and Dan Studney — has no moral whatsoever, which seems an odd way to approach this venerable English folktale. The characters, both good and evil, are handled haphazardly, with little regard for satisfying plot structure. Good guys get dispatched hastily and pointlessly, not even granted a chance to perish in an act of noble self-sacrifice; villains also check out too quickly, at unsatisfying junctures in this protracted narrative.

The whole film feels like a committee affair, as if the four writers squabbled and then grudgingly allowed each contributor’s favorite bit to get stitched into the final result.

The first-act build-up isn’t bad, with farm lad Jack (Nicholas Hoult) chafing over his dull life, as he works the land outside the 12th century fortified English city of Cloister. He seeks escape in the books once read aloud by his father, now dead: particularly the grim legend about the massive creatures who exist in a fearsome realm hovering between Heaven and Earth.

Elsewhere in the kingdom, headstrong Princess Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson, perhaps remembered from 2010’s Alice in Wonderland) feels equally confined, thanks to an overly protective father — Ian McShane, as King Brahmwell — who refuses to let her mingle with the common folk. Worse yet, she has been betrothed to the smarmy Roderick (Stanley Tucci), whose frequent sneers suggest far less than a noble heart.

Roderick has come into possession of the magic beans that are capable of growing a massive beanstalk to Gantua, the giants’ realm of lore, these days regarded as little more than a myth. Roderick intends to control said giants and rule the land, but a guardian monk manages to steal back the beans, which in turn are passed along to Jack. He and Isabelle “meet cute” — the second time, actually — during a stormy night when, clandestinely out and about, and seeking shelter from the rain, she happens upon Jack’s rustic house. (Such a coincidence!)

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides -- Back to basics

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) • View trailer
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for action violence and sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.20.11


Johnny Depp hasn't lost his mincing swagger, and that's great news for fans of this loopy series.

Depp's impeccably timed comic performance remains the best part of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. To watch him is to laugh helplessly: the hilariously trashy pirate's garb; the bemused double-takes; the gently slurred speech and overly precise movements of somebody who drained one too many tankards of rum; the marvelous little bits of physical business, as when he constantly brushes away imaginary lint (as if he could tell, with such filthy apparel?).

Capt. Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) manages an impressive escape from the
clutches of King George and his Royal Guards, by leaping from one moving
carriage to another, as scores of men pursue. Unfortunately, he's merely
running from the frying pan and directly into the fire: a reunion with an even
more dangerous figure from his past.

Depp's Capt. Jack Sparrow — along with all the other characters in these films — may have forever corrupted my vision of a classic pirate. Not even this film's hissably malevolent villain — Ian McShane's Blackbeard — is a figure of genuine dread; he's too idiosyncratically amusing.

But if Depp's constancy is a blessing, the change-up behind the camera is a welcome relief. Director Gore Verbinski has departed for different shores, and I couldn't be happier; his three earlier films in this series suffered from unnecessary bloat. At just shy of three hours, the previous installment (At World's End) was ludicrously self-indulgent, thanks also to a scattershot script that made no sense whatsoever.

Series screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio are back, but this film's new sheriff — replacement director Rob Marshall (Chicago, Memoirs of a Geisha) — obviously brought some much-needed discipline to the process. The story is tighter, the ancillary characters are better defined, and the pacing and editing (David Brenner, Michael Kahn and Wyatt Smith) are vastly superior.

Mind you, we still never completely abandon the cheeky fact that this entire series is based on a Disneyland theme ride, and those who've ridden the boats past the Blue Bayou diners will recognize one more tableau lifted from that attraction's soggy depths. Which is as it should be.

Marshall's approach also is a bit different. He front-loads the film's two best action sequences into the first act, one of which — a swordfight between Jack and an as-yet-unidentified adversary, in the bowels of a tavern's storage room— is a real corker. The superbly staged skirmish reminded me of the two Richard Lester Three Musketeers movies, back in the 1970s: the same inventive choreography, the same hell-for-leather passion by the combatants.

Unfortunately, we don't get anything to equal these sequences, in acts two and three; that's somewhat disappointing.

As the story begins, Capt. Jack's fortunes have dwindled again; he lacks funds, a crew and a ship, his beloved Black Pearl having suffered an unknown fate. It's all he can do to prevent his loyal comrade, Gibbs (Kevin McNally), from getting his neck stretched ... and that rescue concludes with a fresh set of problems. A chance encounter with the woman Jack once loved and cheerfully corrupted — Penélope Cruz's Angelica — results in his being shanghaied onto a scary ship commandeered by no less than Blackbeard himself: not a man to be trifled with.

Angelica is First Mate on this vessel. And she also happens to be Blackbeard's daughter. Which Jack didn't know, back in the day.