Miami Vice (Mini Review)

Wow what a disappointment, Mann can still lay down some beautiful cinematography and ambiance but this film's direction was led astray. Let's just say that Miami Vice is sooo deep undercover, it doesn't even know what it wants to be or is... Is it a gritty underworld cop drama or a clichéd buddy cop flick disguised as a gritty underworld drama? To say that Colin Farrell's and/or Jamie Fox's performances are horrible would be harsh but the honest truth. To say they were right on would be misleading at best and at worse a down right lie. From Fox's forced toughness, too Farrell's shifty accent, nothing is as it should be and therefore unacceptable. Mann dropped the ball at casting call, with script holes, characterization issues and real world plausibility backed by a lame, no HORRIBLE, soundtrack. I will say Mann filmed Miami in a look all his own. Bravo to that... but sadly only that. The writing feels forced and is unimaginative, period. The look, as mentioned above, is right on cool but it gets beaten to a pulp by such a lame story and out of place soundtrack. The only track that worked with the location and scene was sadly the Jay-Z/Link'n Park's "Encore/Numb". Any one expecting Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight", which could have and should have been used right after the beginning sequence would have been accelerating. Instead fans and any one who knows the Miami Vice source material will be insultingly disappointed by the lame cover version used not during the film but at the credits. Fans of the original series hoping to be at least rescued from this lost picture by a slick subtle cameo of Johnson or Thomas, unlike the forced and silly Starsky + Hutch, would have been a simple bone for fans. Regardless, Mann can shoot a gritty scene smelling of authenticity like no one else. He just needs better writers or co-writers with acceptable plots.

Note: By now everyone knows that if a bomb goes off in the immediate proximity of anyone, odds are they will be badly mangled at best and at worse and without a doubt totally obliterated. Yet sadly no one dared to tell Mann about this... and some other real world procedures and facts.

Grade: F +