Miami Vice (2006)

Tag Line:
No Law, No Order, No Rules

IMoG’s Tag Line:
Don Johnson was a pussy

The Plot in a Nut Shell:
Det. Crockett and Tubbs go deep uncover as drug runners to gain enough evidence to nail a top dog drug baron.

The big screen (now DVD) outing for the 80’s worst dressed cops has arrived.
Colin Farrell replaces Don Johnson as Det. James 'Sonny' Crockett and Jamie Foxx replaces Philip Michael Thomas as Det. Ricardo 'Rico' Tubbs.

So the film opens with Crockett and Tubbs getting a phone call from one of their old snitches telling them he’s just grassed up a deep cover FBI agent because some Nazi type peeps are holding his girlfriend hostage.
The FBI dude buys it in a hail of impressive sniper fire.
The girlfriend buys it and the snitch talks a short walk under the wheels of a passing truck.
Needless to say, Crockett and Tubbs are a little miffed at all this.
Enter

Ciarán Hinds as FBI Agent Fujima who recruits the two coppers to go undercover as drug transport dudes in an effort to find out where the link in the FBI department as come from.

And the fun begins.

What can you expect, well if you decide to watch this film thinking you’re going to see a master piece that kicks Heat in the arse, you’re going to be disappointed.

This is about story telling and style, which in the hands of Michael Mann it is choc full of, it practically oozes off the screen. But I think Mann knew he’d have a hard time topping Heat and decided not to bother.
The night time stuff looks amazing via the use of the new digital stuff.
Having watched the release and unrated versions, I can tell you there’s not much difference. The rated version leans a little more toward a dark storyline and fleshes out Tubbs’ character a little more. I preferred this version.

The film is just over 2hrs long and when I saw this at the cinema if I’m honest I didn’t notice the time pass, with the ending sneaking up on me to a mental “What? Already?” running through my head.

(one last thing, Crockett and Tubbs are harder than bleeding nails)

Classic Moment:
Two stick in my mind the most.

1: The scene where Crockett & Tubbs attend a job interview of sorts with José Yero played by John Ortiz to run the drugs for his boss.

Yero points at Crockett whilst informing Tubbs “You, you’re ok but your partner, I don’t like the look of him”
Tubbs calmly asks him “Do you want to fuck my partner?”

2: The stand off scene near the end of the film when Det. Gina Calabrese played by Elizabeth Rodriguez is pointing a rather large rifle at some big Nazi dude that has a bomb detonator in his hand.
Her little speech about where she’s going to shoot him in the head and why is nothing short of classic.

What’s Wrong with it:
Well the main thing here is Crockett’s love interest Isabella played by Li Gong. The woman can hardly speak a stitch of English. Thank God for DVD subtitles. No idea why Michael Mann cast her. I mean bless her she tries but get some frigging English lessons.

I can’t help feeling that even after watching the ‘Unrated and slightly longer’ version of the film that there was still a lot missing. I have a funny feeling that maybe the studio interfered a great deal with the final version we should have seen.

Round up:
Miami Vice is a slow burner with a story to tell, granted not the most amazing of stories to grace our screens but still not in anyway shabby.
If you’re expecting a big glossy Hollywood affair go see Ghost Rider. This film has all the gloss, just not where you’d expect it.

I guess it’s like Marmite, you’ll either love it or hate it. I personally loved it.


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