Overall Rating
  Awesome: 14.74%
Worth A Look: 10.53%
Average: 17.89%
Pretty Bad: 23.16%
Total Crap: 33.68%
8 reviews, 47 user ratings
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| Miami Vice |
by Collin Souter
"As if I really needed another reason to avoid Florida"
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Miami Vice is one of those movies that exists for its plot and nothing else. It has a plot and that’s all it really needs, as far as its creator Michael Mann is concerned. In fact, the movie starts out by taking us right into the middle of its plot, forgoing any sort of backstory, character development or any sort of map for the viewer to decipher who’s who and what’s what. Sometimes, this approach works (the original Dawn of the Dead comes to mind), but in the case of Miami Vice, it throws us in with only an assumption that we already know Crocket and Tubbs and that everything else is self-explanatory. It’s not. Instead, it’s confusing, it’s plodding and none of this really matters anyway because, again, the movie has nothing to say about anything.I mean, let’s just pretend the iconic ‘80s TV show never existed and look at Miami Vice as a movie and nothing more. Just who are these two undercover narcotics agents and why should we care? Sonny Crockett (Colin Farrell) is the stoic white guy who doesn’t always play by the rules and Ricardo Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) is the black guy who likes to joke around with his wife while having sex with her. Other than that, we got nothing. No relationship, no characters and no arch. The movie exists to unfold its plot, which is little more than your most bland episode of Miami Vice stretched out to 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Rather than try and explain this plot, I’ll just say that it involves Colombian drug lords, FBI agents who also go undercover, scenes on loading docks where lots of shooting takes place, the occasional action sequence and a completely unbelievable (not to mention, pedestrian) subplot in which Crockett falls for the femme fatale (Gong Li) whom he’s supposed to be investigating. “I know what I’m doing,” he insists to his partner Tubbs, who gives him little more than a dirty look. We know what he’s doing, too, because we’ve seen this plot device a hundred times and it never gets any newer.
Not only does this relationship seem obligatory to this type of movie, but there exists little in the way of tension to build it up. Why would a woman fall for Crockett? He has nothing to say and with his greasy near-mullet and bad moustache, he looks like a sad, homeless hound dog. And what about his relationship with Tubbs? Do they like each other? Do they hate each other? Are they just two guys who work together but never talk to one another about anything? Much like Gong Li near the end of the movie, I’m curious to know, just “WHO ARE YOU!?!?!”
Michael Mann directed the movie, which is supposed to make me excited about it. Sorry, but I’m just not one of those critics who fawn over everything he does. I like his work, but I’m not in awe of it. Stylistically, I will contend that he’s at the top of his game here. The digital video looks beautiful, as it did in Collateral, bringing to life those beautiful, red Miami clouds that would probably have to be digitally inserted or enhanced were it shot on film stock. You won’t hear me complaining that the movie’s look and atmosphere differentiating too much from the TV show. I’ll take grainy video over tacky pastel colors any day of the week.
But we’re still left with an empty and—save for an excellent shoot-out sequence in a trailer—lifeless movie that probably would never see the light of day were it not for its title. I somehow managed to be a fan of the TV show in its heyday, but cannot explain to myself why. I guess I just liked the look and feel of it, and the music wasn’t bad. I’m sure if I watched an episode or two today, I’d shake my head in utter bewilderment before eventually coming to the conclusion that I was young, impressionable, naïve and that I didn’t really care about such trifles as character development, cohesive narrative and subtlety. Now I know better, but I seriously doubt I’d have a good time at this movie even if I was 13 years old.On the other hand, towards the end of the film, a news station reports of a pending hurricane, at which point I thought, “I will seriously consider giving this movie 3 stars if it actually ends with a hurricane.” That’s how desperate I was for something interesting to happen.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=14888&reviewer=233
originally posted: 07/31/06 13:11:32
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USA
28-Jul-2006 (R)
DVD: 05-Dec-2006
UK
04-Aug-2006
Australia
10-Aug-2006
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