Deep Cover is a film that I haven’t seen for a few years but after its UK release in 1993, I watched this film a LOT on VHS. I watched it so much that I knew the dialogue by heart (or at least I could remember every scene before it happened) I love this movie and its fantastic to see that not only is the film coming out in a beautiful blu ray set, but that its being released by Criterion. If you haven’t seen Deep Dover, I urge you to check it out. Highly recommended.

Set in the streets of 1990s Los Angeles this stylish and subversive underworld crime drama from actor-director BILL DUKE (The Killing Floor, Commando, Predator). LAURENCE FISHBURNE (The Matrix, Boyz n The Hood , John Wick) ) stars as Russell Stevens/John Hull, a police officer who goes undercover as the partner of a dangerously ambitious cocaine trafficker (The Fly’s JEFF GOLDBLUM in one of his career best performances ) in order to infiltrate and bring down a powerful Latin American drug ring operating in LA. But the further Stevens descends into this ruthless world of money, violence, and power, the more disillusioned he becomes—and the harder to make out the line between right and wrong, crime and justice. Steeped in shadowy, neon-soaked atmosphere and featuring DR. DRE’s debut solo single, this unsung gem of the nineties’ Black cinema explosion delivers a riveting character study and sleek action thrills alongside a furious moral indictment of America and the devastating failures of the war on drugs.

DIRECTOR APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:

New 4K digital restoration, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack

New interview with director Bill Duke

New conversation between film scholars Racquel J. Gates and Michael B. Gillespie about Deep Cover’s place within both the Black film boom of the early 1990s and the noir genre

New conversation between scholar Claudrena N. Harold and professor, DJ, and podcaster Oliver Wang about the film’s title track and its importance to the history of hip-hop

Panel discussion from 2018 featuring Bill Duke and Laurence Fishburne and moderated by film critic Elvis Mitchell

Trailer

English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

PLUS: An essay by Gillespie