Miami Vice (2006)

Why so much hype?

To me, this movie is perfection.

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

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.

Whenever Michael Mann is directing a movie, his films suffer from the same problems (usually). Heat, Public Enemies, and ... Miami Vice.He never quite develops the characters in a way that the audience knows (or even cares) who they are. The dialogue in most of his films ... what is wrong with it? The dialogue is so subdued that you can barely hear what they're saying part of the time. The plot ... it just sort of meanders. Great music, very stylish scenes, good acting ... but in typical Mann fashion, all that gets muddled by his directorial style.

Before he became a well-known director to such classic film as "The Last of the Mohicans", "Heat" and "The Insider", director Michael Mann's very earliest filmography was when he served as executive producer of one of the best crime-dramas the the 1980's had in store at the time, the always iconic "Miami Vice". It was a classic series that handled the style and substance quite proportionately. In 2006, Mann has returned to his early roots in a movie adaptation to the classic 1980's series self-evaluating what he's been taught to him over the past few years since the series cancelled in 1990. After watching the movie, there are a few things that didn't sit with me very well and one of the many gripes I had with this adaptation to the series was that at two hours and fifteen minutes, it goes on for much too long. If that's bad enough, it's not only too long, it is also quite hard to decipher what the plot is and at times it becomes very confusing at times. Mann is easily at fault here because he also handled the script as well. When scenes tend to look conventional, it's handled with a complete lack of a formal standpoint. He knows exactly which scenes needs more focus and which ones need to move forward. His scripts usually go beyond sublime, but it reflects just how it reflects towards its audience. And from Mann the performances are what keeps us intrigued. In the case of this movie, the principal characters (Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx) are not the once that provide the best characters in the film who replace Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as Detectives James "Sonny" Crockett and Rico Tubbs who are up to their dangerous anti-drug initiatives. While Foxx gives his all even though his demands are more subtle than crime-fighting partner Farrell. Farrell can't seem to measure up to the more suave performance Johnson portrayed when played Sonny Crockett in the series. Where's Jeff Bridges when you needed him?The supporting players are the once that dominate in their limited screen time and they're the ones who everyone wants to see more of. Barry Shabaka Henley as Sonny and Rico's superior Lt. Castillo (originally played by Edward James Olmos) looks very imposing and fearful, a man you simply don't want to anger with, with the exception of his sensitive eyes. Meanwhile, Luis Tosar who plays Montoya is the polar opposite to Castillo. He is a kingpin who dresses stylistically with a polite manner and a beard, but once again the eyes tell a different story as he's anything but a harmless man on the wrong side of the law. We can see something disturbing about him with those cold piercing eyes. His words from mouth about giving best regards to your family is sign that danger is lurking around. Mann really brings a very interesting perspective to the Montoya character, the kingpin our heroes want to defeat.In most movies,the most evil characters are cunning and colourful. In this movie, it's too laid-back and not very exhilarating. Montoya and his sultry girlfriend Isabella ((Gong Li) are in bed together, with his laptop going over their strategy of who to kill and the time it will be done. The feeling of discomfort comes into effect in Montoya's circle as people were coming into the organization with an over-the-top level of perversity. Montoya's loyal stooge Yero (John Ortiz) was a real piece of work as a grimacing,threatening,jokingly convincing evil-doer. The most noteworthy casting comes from Gong Li. Sure her English is not her best quality and that's understanding, but how she says her lines will make you break into a cold sweat. Sure she's running a South American drug cartel making her an outlaw, but her seductive manipulation towards Sonny is enough to make glasses fog up from the heat. Sure the there have been several chilling female antagonists, but Gong succeeds in keeping it powerful and only her vulnerability is shown through brief flashes. You are crazy if you mess with her mind.The story starts off as a sting operation situated at a nightclub and then it turns into an undercover job going horribly bad. An informant kills himself by getting run over by a truck and how does Mann handle the situation? While refraining from using shaky camera work or thrilling us with gore and carnage, he lets the truck move on with a trail of blood paving the lanes. Then we see baddies killing off people with their ammo towards people in their cars. By filming the scene in the car adds a more personal touch to the film. The cinematography goes way beyond picturesque. When the motorboat coming in from Havana is likely to put you in a romantic view, even for only ten seconds. There's a lot of disparate entities that's happening in "Miami Vice". The scenes involving Sonny and Isabella are just steamy fillers. There's a crime story happening, but it doesn't have much going for it and by the last minutes of the film, it doesn't hold together very well. Film critics have been overfed with a cornucopia of junk. But to see a person who knows the ins-and-outs of a film like this one went way overboard in self-praising himself for it. What I have to say is that it is an average film with some good and bad things about it.

Michael Mann's Miami VICE is an updating of the popular 1980s TV Show, casting Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx as a pair of undercover cops seeking to bring down drug dealers in sun-drenched Floridian locations. The movie even throws in a little sightseeing in Cuba for good measure. Unfortunately, a distinctly average, seen-it-all-before storyline means that this was never going to be anything other than a middling thriller.Mann works hard as director, shooting his film in a colourful, fashionable way (think MANHUNTER) and adding some decent music to the soundtrack. A lot of the film was shot on hand held cameras, which I like; it goes to show that hand held footage need not solely exist in 'found footage' movies, and there's not a shaky-cam in sight, either.Cast-wise, this is a mixed bag. Farrell is acceptable as the smouldering hero, but Foxx is miscast and seems bored with his part. The good news is that he's off-screen for about half the running time. Gong Li is very good as the femme fatale, even if she did learn her lines phonetically, and there are some good if minor performances from Tom Towles (HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER) as a white supremacist, the reliable Ciaran Hinds, and Luis Tosar (SLEEP TIGHT) as a drug baron.