Miami Vice

by Ari

Michael Mann has a reputation for being one of the most consistent and professional directors working in film today. After years of solid work that includes Heat, The Insider, Ali, and Collateral, Mann has earned a respectable place among noteworthy and successful mainstream filmmakers. He exudes style and energy in the sharpest and most intelligent ways - something that stamps his work with a bold and memorable signature. Beyond the style is maturity, confidence, and thematic depth which provides a tangible emotional attachment with the many characters, good or bad, that have livened his many different stories. Mann delves into complexity with his characters and narratives, and his challenging edginess is why his professionalism has been praised so enthusiastically in the past. It comes to my absolute surprise that his newest film, Miami Vice, is not only lacking that level of sophistication and class, but also an engaging narrative that works in a remotely decent manner. Miami Vice is an unexpected and empty exercise in surface details and stylized emotion, a dragging, flashy, and exaggerated crime thriller that unfortunately forgets to deliver on the entire purpose of its genre: Thrill. Miami Vice is a series of misfires that add up to one of the most disappointing and unsatisfying movies of the year.

Once the Universal logo fades away, the exploding pulse of a Miami nightclub bursts onto the screen, immediately engulfing the viewer into the dangerous world of rotten criminals, dirty dealings, undercover vice cops, and a general bevy of other seedy characters. On the stakeout is Crockett (Colin Farrel) and Tubbs (Jaimie Foxx), the oh so cool and slick duo of detectives that enforce law and prevent bad men from doing what they do. The overbearing style assaults the viewer within seconds. The opening sequence makes it perfectly clear that Mann is more interested in what his fancy new technology can capture rather than establishing characters and story. But then again, what exactly is there to know about Crockett and Tubbs? They’re fit, nicely dressed men who look tough and talk tougher. They’re undercover police officers doing their best to uncover a major drug-running enterprise that could possibly have ties to dangerous Colombian warlords. They can seemingly operate any vehicle with absolute control and ease.

Quite frankly, the onslaught of standard plot devices and shallow character development wears thin by the end of the first hour, leaving another hour and twenty-six minutes to endure the even shallower descent into the supposedly complex nature of getting romantically entangled with the wrong people. While it may only be fitting for a movie based on a television show to follow a similar structure (only longer), the tedious plotting loses all traces of interest far too soon. Crockett is the only character with an actual arc, and that arc follows the very predictable points of 1) going undercover, 2) getting mixed up the wrong woman (Gong Li) and 3) having to get the job done regardless. It’s very basic and common storytelling, with many departures into side-acts of sex and violence to distract from how shallow it is.

The excess of flashy photography is perhaps the most jarring and mystifying aspect of the entire movie. While Mann’s new digital technology demonstrates an incredible depth of field - great for large vistas and exotic locales - the overall tone is still simply video. This is supposed to give Miami Vice a greater sense of urgency and realism, but unfortunately just reduces everything to high-level television. The extreme close-ups and jerky, handheld movement becomes self-parody of Mann’s usual style. The visual elegance of Heat is gone completely. The sharp consistency of Collateral is nowhere to be found. Miami Vice, while certainly vibrant, is a messy composite of different visual ideas that serve no purpose, no characters, and no story. Mann loves experimenting with HD equipment, and while many images are impressively crisp and clear, many are grainy and flat. Night photography is particularly ugly at times, which is especially strange considering how brilliantly it worked in Collateral. Of course, Miami’s neon shine is a bit different than Los Angeles. The cinematography in Miami Vice is mostly colorful and alive, but alive in alarming and aggressive ways.

Aggressive is an appropriate description for Miami Vice. Mann inserts tough, egotistical, and masculine attitude in the many gritty characters he lovingly presents. It’s showy and amateurish - far inferior to his usually classy tones. Immature tendencies such as this are usually by lesser filmmakers, so it’s a bit disconcerting watching one of the most assured directors stupe to such lows. Collin Farrell has the most to work with, so he’s naturally more engaging than Foxx’s exhausted looking Tubbs. Of course, the deepest Mann reveals about Crockett is that he can dance.....very well. That’s about it. The quiet, intimate character moment given to Foxx is a steamy shower and subsequent love scene with his lover. Not exactly enough to inspire interest or care for his personal distress of working undercover in the most dangerous of places.

Mann demonstrates his skill in crafting well-staged sequences of violence. The finale shoot-out is an intense orchestration of gunplay and mayhem, but too short and too late to really matter. The sequence conveys tension and brutality reminiscent of the club massacre in Collateral, with technically impressive and accomplished execution. Unfortunately, it comes at the end of a tired and overblown story.

Miami Vice is a dull exercise in style by a filmmaker capable of so much more. A major disappointment.