Undercover
Undercover
NR | 03 April 2016 (USA)
SEASON & EPISODES
  • 1
  • Reviews
    Cebalord

    Very best movie i ever watch

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    ThiefHott

    Too much of everything

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    SnoReptilePlenty

    Memorable, crazy movie

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    Livestonth

    I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

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    notoriouslynice-26657

    I so wanted to like this. The premise sounded promising. Sophie Okonedo and Adrian Lester are two of my favorite actors. The story started slowly but picked up speed toward the end. Then...there should be a special place in hell for writers who string you along for 6 hours and then give you nothing.

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    marthaloveslottie

    This is a fabulous piece of writing, acting and directing.It is not "pants" or "not believable" as some people are saying- it is based on extensive research into the long history of the Met Police using undercover cops to spy on a huge number of campaigning groups e.g Greenpeace.The plot line may have been dramatised- but this is a DRAMA, not claiming to be a total replica of the truth which clearly people have totally misinterpreted. It is compelling viewing, very well written by Peter Moffat (Silk, Criminal Justice, The Village) and beautifully acted by Sophie Okonedo and Adrian Lester, in particular.It is one of the only British TV shows to cast the two main characters as black, and I think people are forgetting this.Don't let patriotic, uneducated reviews put you off people!

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    Andrew Thelwell

    This show started out pretty well. Some cloak and dagger mysterious goings on, racial tensions, flashbacks to 20 years previous, various threads of story to follow. It seemed promising.Then it really all started going downhill...First, this show must take the award for literally the worst attempt ever (read: no attempt at all) to make actors look convincingly older/younger between two time periods. I know this is going to be challenging and there's only 'so much' that can be done, but at least do some work with hair and makeup, exaggerated fashion choices, etc. to try to convince us that these scenes are 20 years apart. Add a little grey hair and a few subtle wrinkles in the 'later' years, stuff like that. At least make some kind of attempt. This was pathetic. Everyone had the exact same hairstyles between 1996 and 2006... except Adrian Lester, whose hair is *slightly* longer in 1996. Even the restaurants in '96 have modern-day décor, and the kitchens look all glossy white and modern. Really, really poor.Second, in the all-time awards of "most actors pretending to be American who clearly are not American" this show comes up trumps. The accents are laughable. Surely the BBC could find one or two actual Americans to play actual Americans, thus ensuring they sound like actual Americans? Terrible.Third, there are several incredibly sloppy plot points. (Spoilers herein): 1) Adrian Lester's character deliberately breaks his wrist in the jamb of a metal gate. This is so he can get a plaster cast put on it, and use that plaster to hide a recording device to entrap the 'baddies'. Oooooh.... clever! Problem 1: In the scene in question, he closes the gate with all the force of a feather blowing in the wind. It would never be enough to break a wrist. Problem 2: Why would you need to break your wrist in order to have somewhere to hide a recording device? There are tons of other ways to achieve this. Absolutely nothing in the plot explains why wrist-breaking was necessary, nor does anything in the plot hinge on the presence of the plaster cast itself. Problem 3: Immediately after trying to trap the baddies, Lester's character smashes the recording device, claiming that it did no good. WHY? Problem 4: ...Oh God, I can't be bothered. I'm bored now.As for the ending... Well, I can only describe it as completely incoherent. I can only imagine there's another series to come because the major plot twist does nothing to tie up any loose ends and simply leaves more questions hanging in thin air.I have never been left more confused or bemused by a TV show. Thoroughly befuddled and disappointed with this.

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    chris-bushwacker

    This is a comment on "Undercover", rather than a full-blown review. Sophie Okonedo is a very expressive actress and the range of emotions she displays as Maya are believable. She makes her real and at times extremely irritating with her relentless right-on, goody two-shoes behaviour. She loves her husband, she loves her kids, she is dedicated to her job, she has time for everyone and never snaps that she just wants to loll in the bath reading a book for some peace and quiet.Every trendy box is ticked here - high-achieving black family, social conscience, human rights, epileptic heroine, autistic son, women's lib, house husband, fighting to save death row inmates - it's a full-frontal assault that dares us to disapprove or even have a fleeting selfish thought, because by golly Maya never does.All this places a rather brittle and fake veneer on a storyline that does have its dark moments and dirty underbelly. The moral dilemmas are real and imaginable but what a shame the lead character is so upright and certain of her path that these dilemmas are not wrestled with in a realistic way. Nothing in life is clearly black and white, but that world view is not something Maya subscribes to. It must be nice to be so certain of everything.For a long time now on television we have had flawed cops, private eyes, detectives, reluctant mediums, lead characters "battling their demons", all with messy private lives that are supposed to make them interesting as they react in unpredictable ways to all the various plot twists they are put through. In "Undercover" we have a lead character that acts in a totally predictable way to everything, apparently suffers no doubts or misgivings, and is firmly waving her righteous sword, never losing sight of the moral high ground or how to stay there.This is a story of deceit and the sheer mountain of lies that can be constructed over a period of 20 years. What a pity it had to be wrapped in a politically correct blanket that suffocates any real exploration of the plausible grey areas in life. If it's not right then it's obviously wrong, and that's that.

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