Miami Vice (2006)

Miami Vice (2006) starring Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx, portraying their roles of the popular 1980's television series. Farrell takes over playing the role of undercover cop Sonny Crockett, who works with his partner Ricardo Tubbs to dissolve into a South American drug smuggling operation. Well put into the film, and together both characters risk their lives to discover how some blew the cover on a crucial FBI operation. But as they venture deeper and deeper into a jungle of evil, posing as professional smugglers, they run the risk of losing their moral compasses along the way. After a tense meeting with a nervous drug dealer named Jose Yero (John Ortiz), they're taken all the way to an encounter with the cartel's Colombian prince of darkness. The chemistry between Farrell and Foxx isn't as great as it could have been, or perhaps that is how it was meant to be portrayed, as it did not come off as natural and at times forced.Within the film Miami Vice starts off relatively slow but becomes a better film and more entertaining as the films goes on, though with a predictable and typical ending we have seen before. Nothing much stands out in this film as it isn't as stylish or over the top with action as advertised. More so a slow paced drama than an exciting and thrilling action thriller. Containing some confusing and overlong scenes adding noting much. With a very large and unnecessary budget of $135 million with only making $163 million worldwide, we are wondered why this film needed a budget of this large, causing a massive flop, and receiving more negative and disappointing reviews.

If, like me, you thought this film would resemble the TV series of the same name you are very much mistaken. Aside from a select few character names this film bears no resemblance to the TV series and really should have been called something else. The film was long winded, meandering and lacking any interesting plot lines. Dull dialogue interspersed with explosions and sex scenes is what you can expect from this over-hyped flop of a film. The interaction between Sonny and Rico was stunted and underdeveloped. In the TV series they formed a real bond, in the movie they appear to almost despise each other. They have focused too hard on creating a 'hard-man' image and foregone the charm and wit of the original characters, making them seem very scripted and unbelievable. Overall this film masquerades under the facade of a fantastic TV series and will leave anyone who enjoyed the series thoroughly disappointed.

As a fan of the original series, I was beyond disappointed. When I heard they were making a 'vice' movie, I was excited. There's so much material and fertile ground to work with, that you have to really try hard to make a bad film based on Miami vice. The film makers succeeded in doing just that. First off the casting. You can't underestimate the impact Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas had in making the show such a huge hit. Even without great acting, just on visual appeal alone they were very intriguing. If you get that part wrong, you ruin the whole thing and that is what happened here. Apparently Jamie Foxx suggested this film to Mann after working with him in Ali. This pretty much guaranteed the part of Tubbs to Foxx, dooming this picture from the start. I think Foxx may be the most over rated actor of the past decade. While certainly not Oscar-worthy, he did do a decent job of portraying Ray Charles, but I have never been able to take him seriously as an actor and any time I see his face I keep waiting for some buffoonish punchline ala in living color or the Jamie Foxx show. He comes across as cheesy and fake and it is impossible to take him seriously in any dramatic role. With humor being his strong suit, you would think they would have given him a couple of jokes, as even the original Tubbs had his share of punchlines, but Foxx remains overly serious and stiff throughout. It was rumored that Will Smith was considered and he would have suited the role of Tubbs much better. Colin Farrell makes an equally bad Sonny Crockett. Part of Crockett's appeal was the fact that he was a plain spoken all American guy working in a vibrant international city. Put in a foreign looking guy with a foreign accent and it just doesn't work as well. Apparently Don Johnson himself suggested Ferrell. What was he thinking? Another element of the TV series appeal was the surrounding characters. Zito and Switek. Gina and Trudy. And of course Lt. Castillo. In the movie, these characters are completely under developed or nonexistent.As for the plot, it was throw away. Generic international smuggler routine taking us around the globe. The beauty of vice was it's focus on Miami. There's so much potential for juicy plot lines right there that there's no need to go overseas. The villains in the TV series, although stereotypical, were very colorful and more believable to the city. The Italian mafia goons, Cubano, Colombian and Jamaican villains that inhabited Miami in the TV series should have been reprised here. Instead they chose to go for a non believable neo nazi type. What white supremacist would ever live in Miami? the least white major city in America.While the cinematography was okay, it did not do the legacy of Miami Vice justice. The original Miami Vice was criticized for style over substance. The movie took away the cool style and left zero substance. What made Vice so iconic was the bright sunny Miami backdrops. Beach scenes, beautiful women, groundbreaking wardrobe and awesome houses cars and boats. They would do scenes right on Ocean Drive surrounded by highly recognizable Miami landmarks. They were known for using bright neon and art deco colors. In the film they went for low lighting and dark and grey color schemes. Gone are the neon cityscapes, bright south-beach scenes and the beautiful women. Take all that away and Miami vice just isn't Miami vice. The digital photography gave the film a feeling of a bad reality TV show. The Miami of the 80's was fast paced, dangerous, and is remembered as a mythical time. By setting the film in modern times it just becomes somewhat stale and boring, but even with a modern day setting it could have been way more interesting and entertaining than it was. The pacing and lack of action in this movie are inexcusable especially with 100 million plus budget. The great thing about the TV show was the high action. The fist fights, the shootouts, the car chases, the boat chases, the explosions. The movie overlooked these almost entirely and opted for blood and violence just for violence sake. While the TV show had a lot of killing, there was a lot less blood. More of the actual violence was left to the imagination.Overall, the movie is Miami Vice in name only. They very loosely follow the formula of the original in that it is set in Miami, there are smugglers to be caught and the bad guys get killed. But they do this without any of the charm that the show so masterfully employed in getting us from point a to point b. The eye candy and the danger of Miami at the time, laced with a little bit of humor, an authentic Miami feel, a clever twist at the end with some folksy cop wisdom of lessons learned by Sonny usually followed by a catchy phrase, beautiful Miami sunset and credits. I think part of this movies problem is that it takes itself too seriously while the series was somewhat tongue in cheek. They have done a great disservice to the franchise. People who never saw the show will think 'what was all the hype about Miami vice' and people who did see the show will assume the film makers were trying to distance themselves too much from the original. The film doesn't stand alone on it's own merits or in comparison to it's predecessor. It shows that Mann probably had little to do with the TV show's success. Then when it came time to do the movie he really had nothing. They had one shot to get this right as the 20 year nostalgia cycle was coming around and they completely blew it.Skip this movie, especially if you liked the series.

Dear Michael Mann, Miami Vice was a wonderful mess of a film. Thank you for making it. I have not seen the original series so I cannot write about how the film compares to the TV series. I am curious about how the film would have turned out if you had not used digital photography. I like the carefully composed shots and the tasteful sets of your earlier classics like Thief and Manhunter.But unlike the haters, I thought Miami Vice was full of stylishly rendered scenes starting with the very first scene at the nightclub. You lined up an array of actors with remarkable faces for this film - they played white supremacists, South American gangsters, FBI agents and undercover cops. However, Colin Farrel, Jamie Foxx and John Ortiz were disappointments. I guess you had to cast huge stars to finance a big budget film like Miami Vice. Gong Li who looked like pure royalty made up for the unremarkable heroes and villain.The story isn't much to write home about. It is a stylized account of the lives of two undercover cops, their women and their toys. The plot is deliberately incoherent. The dialogues which are delivered in whispers with Chris Cornell wailing or heavy metal guitars growling in the background were a complete mystery. But then, it is not really about the plot. We get a look around Miami. And it is not just the posh condos and the exotic bars. But also the warehouses and the barren lands where all the stand offs take place. There are at least three remarkable stands off in the film. In fact, there are more standoffs than full length action scenes. The interracial romance between Gong Li and Colin Farrel and its consequences is a comment on the state of race relations in the multi-cultural and multi-racial melting pot that is Florida. Miami Vice is a moody, stylish and ultimately flawed film demonstrates what mainstream big budget Hollywood action cinema can be. In the decade since Miami Vice, we have witnessed the gradual decline of American cinema as superheroes and mind numbing special effects have taken over the landscape once occupied by the likes of you and Tony Scott. It is a real shame. But thanks for the effort, Michael. Best Regards, Pimpin. (8/10)