Welcome to Miami! (Miami Vice (Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx) (DVD))

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Product:	Miami Vice (Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx) (DVD)
Date:	27/09/06 (291 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Gritty and realistic, great final showdown

Disadvantages: Farrell overacts, confusing story and characters. Dull, dull, dull!

Introduction
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After a security breach leads to several deaths, detectives James “Sonny” Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs are sent deep undercover to bring down a gang of drug traffickers. However, their personal and professional lives start to become intertwined. Will they remember whose side they are really on?

The Cast
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Colin Farrell is James “Sonny” Crockett, the unorthodox cop played in the original TV series by Don Johnson. Frankly, it’s not a good role for Farrell. Sporting long, greasy hair and a stupid 70s style moustache, he looks ridiculous. Sadly, his performance is not much better than his look. He tries to play Crockett as far too macho – all swaggering posture and gravely voice – and ends up becoming almost a parody of the “tough guy” he is trying to portray.

Far better is Jamie Foxx, who underplays his role as Ricardo Tubbs and is much the better for it. Although not as outwardly emotional as Farrell, Foxx spends the movie seething with quiet anger, controlling it until it finds a suitable outlet. Foxx is far more convincing as both a cop and an undercover agent, and is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise disappointing film.

The focus of the two films is very much on these characters. The additional characters tend to be slightly stereotypical (uptight FBI man who needs their help, tough but fair boss who is willing to go out on a limb for his maverick detectives etc.)

One area in which the film is to be praised is that it employs non-Caucasian/non-US actors in many of the key roles (although these do tend to fill the bad guy/drug dealer roles). The downside to this is that at times it can be difficult to understand the various accents you hear. As the film wears on, this is less of a problem, as you become accustomed to them. However, it does mean that you are sometimes struggling to keep up with what is happening on screen because you were unable to hear/understand a key line of dialogue.

Miami Vice (TV) vs. Miami Vice (Film)
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First of all, I never used to watch the original TV series, so am not best placed to comment on the similarities or differences. However, from what I can tell, where Miami Vice on TV was a piece of pure entertainment, with colourful characters and OTT plots, Miami Vice the film is far more gritty and dark, with non of the humorous interplay that people so much enjoyed from the TV series. In fact, from my little experience with the TV show, the only real line of continuity I can see is that the names of the main characters are the same and Michael Mann was responsible for both.

The Film
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Visually, the film is very impressive, making the most of the impressive locations which director Mann has at his disposal. The benefits of the wealth generated from the drugs trade is shown by the fact that the dealers live in splendid surroundings, whilst the squalor of the areas in which they ply their trade are also shown. The whole film has a dark, grimy and somehow dirty feel to it, which well suits the subject matter and does help to build an atmosphere which gives some idea of the world in which such people operate.

Mann uses a sort of documentary style approach, with restless camera work which constantly moves and judders to give that feeling of being there. The trouble is, he overdoes it, and gives the impression of having employed a camera operator who has been drinking too much caffeine.

Anyone familiar with Mann’s other films will immediately recognise the other element to the visual style – long, languid looks at locations and buildings. Mann also indulges his other passion – fast cars boats and planes. We get repeated shots of Crockett and Tubbs racing down the freeways of Miami in fast cars, or zipping across the sea to Cuba in a speedboat. At times it feels less like you’re watching a film, and more like you’ve accidentally stumbled across some kind of auto porn.

The trouble is, this is all disguising the fact that there’s not actually much substance to the film, which quickly becomes both maddening and infuriating.

Take, for example, the central idea of the film – that there is a danger that Crockett and Tubbs may go so deep undercover that they forgot who they really are and what they are there to do. You simply never feel that this is likely to happen, so there is no tension. It would have been far better plot-wise for one of the characters (probably Crockett) to become distracted, whilst the other remains focussed. That would have generated interesting tensions that would have posed serious questions about the nature of undercover work.

In fairness, Mann does try to do this by having Crockett have an affair with Isabella – one of the drug dealers he is trying to bring to justice. The trouble is, no matter how many times Mann puts them together, there is simply no chemistry, not a hint of a spark between Farrell and Gong Li. Even at the end of the film, where Mann is clearly trying to generate some kind of emotional impact, there is nothing.

As well as lacking any emotional impact, the film feels very disjointed, and some plot events seem to have been plucked seemingly at random. People suddenly pop up in a new location, without any explanation as to why they went there, leading to a lack of narrative structure which can be bewildering.

This is the problem with the whole film: for all its gritty realism and clever camera work, it never feels like it’s a coherent story. It seems like you come into the story halfway through, with no explanation as to what has happened to date. This means you are permanently trying to catch up and, because the film leaps from location to location, you always feel you are at least two steps behind. By the time the end arrives, things are a little clearer, but you still can’t help feel that you’ve missed something along the way.

The final problem with this film is that the pace is very slow. I’m sure this reflects the reality of police work far more accurately, but it doesn’t make an entertaining film. One of the reasons the original TV show was successful was because it concentrated on action. This film is very dialogue heavy and, as I’ve already mentioned , it can be difficult to understand the dialogue at times.

When the action finally does kick in towards the end of the film, it is at least worth waiting for. The final showdown between the police and the drug dealers is an excellent set-piece. Both sides are packing serious weaponry and you actually feel like it is a proper gun battle. The sights and noises actually look very realistic – no over-stylised gun battles here. Similarly, the pseudo-documentary style camera work really works here. The camera ducks for cover behind cars or scampers across open spaces to the next bit of available cover, meaning you really feel like you’re in the middle of the battle. True, it’s not a patch on the gun battles Mann conjured up in Heat, but it’s still the high point of the film.

Conclusion
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Final gun battle aside, this is a confusing mess. It’s not a serious look at the drugs trade (Traffic), a buddy cop action movie (Lethal Weapon) or a consideration of how undercover work affects people (Training Day). Michael Mann’s confusing direction, together with the jumpy nature of the script simply produces a film which is difficult to watch and which, final 20 minutes or so aside, is not worth the effort. It’s this final 20 minutes which just about raises the film to two star level and saves it from the ignominy of being the first film to get a one star rating from me.

There is a good film to be had from Miami Vice. Sadly though, this is not it.

Basic Information
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Miami Vice
2006
Cert. 15
Running Time: approx. 134 minutes
Director: Michael Mann

Trivia
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The end credits feature a cover of Phil Collins’ “Something in the air tonight”. This song was featured on the pilot episode of the original TV series.

Summary: A disappointing mess from a concept that had so much potential