IN TOO DEEP A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): **
Like an actor who can't get out of character, rookie cop Jeffrey Cole (Omar Epps) has gone so deep undercover in the projects that he has trouble remembering where his allegiances lie.
Supposedly based on a true story, Michael Rymer's IN TOO DEEP tells a conventional and predictable undercover story that requires frequent suspension of disbelief. After his first bust, Cole, for instance, walks away so that everyone in the neighborhood can see he is a cop. Normally, once your cover is blown, you give up the undercover life. Not in this story. And -- surprise! -- this mistake will come back to haunt him.
As in the recent, abysmal DEEP BLUE SEA, the best thing about the movie is LL Cool J, who gives humanity and a chilling reality to a role that frequently is reduced to caricature. Here he plays God, an aptly named drug lord. God, who controls eighty percent of the crack cocaine in the city, loves to do things like throwing parties for his current and potential customers. He treats everyone in the ghetto to a Thanksgiving Day feast. He also likes to beat disrespectful employees to death, using a pool cue to sexually abuse them first.
Michael Henry Brown and Paul Aaron's script wants to make the story into a sentimental one, looking compassionately at the plight of the poor undercover cop. To foster this mood, Cole is sent for a long sabbatical of sorts in the middle of his investigation. Living in a pastoral setting in a farmhouse, he spends his time taking a photography course and photographing a lovely nude model, played by Nia Long from LOVE JONES. Of course, they will fall in love, and he will spill the beans about his life as an undercover investigator of a big-time drug lord, God.
BIG NIGHT's Stanley Tucci, plays Cole's sympathetic supervisor in the police department. Cole disobeys his direct orders and verbally abuses him without any consequences other than the aforementioned free vacation in the country.
The dialog can be unintelligible at times, and there are only a few sympathetic characters in the story, yet the movie somehow manages to rise slightly above the hackneyed storyline. Still, there's little to recommend the movie. You've seen this story before. And better.
IN TOO DEEP runs too long at 1:44. It is rated R for strong, pervasive violence, drug usage, sex and language and would be acceptable for teenagers only if they are older and mature.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews