ENTERTAINMENT / Review
"Miami Vice" a drab affair
By Michael Rechtshaffen (LOS ANGELES)
Updated: 2006-07-24 12:07
Substance places a distant second to style in the big-screen version of
"Miami Vice," which sees respected filmmaker Michael Mann returning to
the scene of the crime series that so effectively defined a decade.
Gone are the pastel threads and the night-soaked neon that played such a
big part in the show that was born of NBC Entertainment chief Brandon
Tartikoff's simple yet wildly successful "MTV cops" concept.
In its place is a darker, grittier creature that, while benefiting
considerably from Dion Beebe's high-definition cinematography, is a
frustratingly inert affair -- a long and talky excursion that fails to
engage the viewer from the outset.
Those in the market for some of that old Crockett-Tubbs camaraderie are
bound to be disappointed by the Colin Farrell- Jamie Foxx model, in which
the two actors appear to be engaged in a contest to determine who can
appear more morose while expending the least amount of energy, especially
in terms of their own flat exchanges.
Maybe it had something to do with that Miami heat, but the languid
results likely won't be much of a tonic for the summer's lackluster box
office -- pirate pictures excepted.
In updating the series, which ran from 1984-89, writer-director Mann has
moved beyond the trendsetting South Beach color scheme and into murkier
waters for this story that pits undercover vice cops Sonny Crockett
(Farrell) and Ricardo Tubbs (Foxx) against nasty international drug
traffickers.
Drawn into a world of sophisticated cartels, the two face off against
Aryan Brotherhood thugs and a beautiful but tough Chinese-Cuban money
launderer (the latter played by not always easy to understand Gong Li),
but Mann's writing keeps getting in the way of his direction.
The picture takes a stylistic cue from his previous film, "Collateral,"
also lensed by Beebe. But where that L.A. nocturne so effectively
ratcheted up the tension, "Miami Vice" merely ratchets up the pretension,
with too many potentially explosive sequences just ending up hanging
there like the Florida humidity.
All the stilted dialogue -- more like the sentence fragments standing in
for dialogue -- certainly don't help the actors' cause, especially those
for whom English is unmistakably a second language. But even in silence
Foxx and Farrell fail to generate any convincing buddy cop chemistry.
Taking advantage of the larger canvas, Mann expands the scenario to
include stops in Uruguay, Paraguay and the Dominican Republic (which
doubles for Haiti), but for all the cosmopolitan intrigue, "Miami Vice"
just doesn't go anywhere interesting.Even the music, which played such a
key role on the TV series, is a letdown here.
In the absence of Jan Hammer's propulsive original theme, composer John
Murphy's anonymous score and song contributions by the likes of Moby and
Audioslave fail to reach the mood-setting heights of Phil Collins' "In
the Air Tonight," updated here in an uninspired cover by Nonpoint.
While costume designer Janty Yates' steely, monochromatic Crockett and
Tubbs duds are certainly in keeping with the grainier tone, it just ain't
"Miami Vice" without those immortal powder blue or lime green sports
jackets.
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