Two Masks. Deep Cover is directed by Bill Duke and written by Michael Tolkin and Henry Bean. It stars Larry Fishburne, Jeff Goldblum, Charles Martin Smith, Victoria Dillard and Gregory Sierra. Music is by Michel Colombier and cinematography by Bojan Bazelli. Traumatised as a youngster by the death of his junkie father, Russell Stevens (Fishburne) becomes a police officer. Passing an interview with DEA Agent Gerald Carver (Smith), Stevens goes undercover to bust a major drug gang that has links to high places. But the closer he gets in with the targets, the deeper he gets involved - emotionally and psychologically. A splendid slice of gritty neo-noir, Deep Cover follows a classic film noir theme of a man descending into a world he really shouldn't be part of. This is a shifty and grungy Los Angeles, awash with blood money, single parents prepared to sell their kids, where kids in their early teens mule for the dealers and get killed in the process. A place of dimly lighted bars and pool halls, of dank streets and scrap yards, and of course of violence and misery. The look and tone of the picture is as intense as the characterisations on show. Duke (A Rage in Harlem) knows some tricks to imbue psychological distortion, canted angles, step-print framing, slow angled lensing, jump cuts and sweaty close ups. Bazelli photographs with a deliberate urban feel, making red prominent…

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