Eye Candy #464 - "Miami Vice"

Miami Vice: I was a little too young to enjoy the TV show “Miami Vice” in its heyday. I remember watching the occasional tidbit, seeing the “Miami Vice” stunt show at Universal Studios. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve learned more (and seen more) about Michael Mann, the TV series creator. I’ve enjoyed some of his other films: Heat, Collateral, The Last of the Mohicans, Manhunter, The Insider. They’re all fairly stylish, well-written, good movies that are watchable again and again (I own quite a few of them). So seeing Mann revisit his old stomping grounds of “Miami Vice” wasn’t a scary idea. I knew that it wasn’t going to be a retread of old looks, actors, and stories, and Mr. Mann really hasn’t let me down yet.  Gone is Don Johnson as Sonny Crocket. In is everyone’s favorite Irishman about town (no, not Liam Neeson) Colin Farrell. Gone also is Phillip Michael Thomas as Rico Tubbs. In is Jamie Foxx (a Mann alum from Collateral). Trudy, Switek, Vito, Calabrese are all here as well, played by younger, hipper actors.  An FBI undercover deal goes sour, resulting in the death of a former informant of Crockett and Tubb’s. They are pressed into service by FBI Agent Fujima (Ciaran Hinds) to find out who the shooter is and close them down. This brings them into contact with Colombians, Cubans, the Aryan Brotherhood, Haitian mobsters, and one Chinese businesswoman/interpreter (Gong Li, in only her second all-English role, the first being “Memoirs of a Geisha”). We also get fast cars, fast boats, explosions, incidental nudity, and the trademark loud Michael Mann gunfight.  The dialogue is good (some of it lifted from old “Miami Vice” episodes), the action set pieces are solid (as I’ve come to expect from Mann), and the acting is relatively good. It’s a fun movie to watch, entertaining, but does have some flaws.  While this movie has got style to spare, the plot leaves some gaping holes, including one major one in particular - Tobbs and Crockett are supposed to find who ratted out the FBI agents that got killed when the original operation went into the pooper...and they never do.  Mann’s use of music, which is usually spot-on, seems more muddled than usual - there is almost too much music and not all of it serves the film.  And at 2 hours 26 minutes, the film is about a half-hour too long.  But I enjoyed it. I took my dad with me for his birthday and he enjoyed it. So there you go.  Woodchuck sez, “Check it out.”