Miami Vice

Though it's an adaptation of one of the most iconic American TV shows of the 1980's, and the title "Miami Vice" has become all but synonymous with big hair, pink neon and white suits, Michael Mann's latest cop drama takes place in a gritty, solemn present day Florida. He's chosen to abandon the recognizable trappings that would help sell the idea of a Miami Vice movie, to reuse the original show's central concept and format while updating the look and the style for contemporary audiences. The result works better than could possibly be expected; along with The Fugitive, it represents the very pinnacle of the TV-to-film crossover genre, if only because it's willing to completely alter the sensibility of the show while keeping the essential themes and fetishes intact.

I've read more than one review implying that the movie Miami Vice bears no resemblance whatsoever to the TV show. This is a superficial reading of the movie, focusing only on the fashion and the music and the cinematography. In fact, Mann's film follows the format of an old "Miami Vice" episode exactly. It's not some new, completely fresh take on the notion of narcotics officers in Miami; it's more like a fusion of the old "Miami Vice" show, Mann's previous thriller Collateral and an episode of the "Cops" reality show.

Two cops go undercover and meet several colorful characters from the Florida black market drug scene. Their team makes use of the latest in surveillance, transportation and weapons technology, placing these two on the cutting edge of some of the most dangerous police work in the country. They start to get in over their heads, beginning an affair with one of their underground contacts and making powerful enemies. Finally, decisions and sacrifices and busts are made, some baddies die and some get away, and everything returns to an awkward, uneasy stasis, a tentative truce between the cops and the smugglers. Sounds like "Miami Vice" to me!



Possibly because he's making a single, densely-plotted film, Mann tends to gloss over some of the human details that would be more fleshed out in serialized format. Crockett (Colin Farrell) and his partner Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) are established early on in broad strokes - one's the ambitious, girl-crazy hotshot while the other a more calm, tactical and judicious officer with a steady girlfriend (Naomie Harris) and a strong desire to live past the next few days. That's about all we'll get in terms of character development. These are characters designed to take the audience on a whirlwind tour of a fantastical, over-the-top universe of criminality, not to touch us with their deeply-felt human suffering.

In fact, considering that the film's longer-than-average, there's shockingly little standard, generic "filler material." Crockett and Tubbs both have women in their lives, but we're spared the usual cop movie "baby don't go out tonight stay home with me and the children" sequences. Though they get kidnapped somewhat frequently, it's to Mann's credit that the movie is filled with tough no-nonsense women. In addition to Harris' Trudy, a committed member of the narcotics team, there are several other female officers and even a steely female drug kingpin on hand.

Several other cops fill out their team, but Mann doesn't bother with the expected "getting to know the crew" montage. In fact, though they're almost uniformly played by recognizable character actors, most are never named and get only a few random, expositional lines...This is Farrell and Foxx's show all the way. There isn't even an opening credit sequence - the Universal logo appears and suddenly we're plunged into a Miami nightclub, the sounds of Jay Z and Linkin Park's "Numb" mash-up blaring through the surround sound speakers. The action simply begins, sans any kind of exposition or even an announcement that you're about to see Miami Vice.

The plot, as it is, comes together in bits and pieces. Crockett and Tubbs hear from an old informant (John Hawkes), terrified and on the run, who had been working lately with the FBI. Following up on this information, they become involved in a sting operation designed to nab an Aryan prison gang dealing large quantities of cocaine. In order to catch the white supremacists, they must get in good with slimy South American middle man Yero (John Ortiz) and his boss, the exotic and brash Isabella (Gong Li).

It sounds complicated, but the story unfolds in a most straightforward fashion. Crockett and Tubbs movie their way slowly up the ladder, constantly proving themselves to every new criminal they meet. This pared-down narrative, heavy on incident and light on nuance, gives the movie a rare realism and immediacy, highlighted by the sometimes grainy handheld digital photography. In Collateral, Mann and cinematography Dion Beebe used this technique to give Los Angeles an eerie, otherworldly and even menacing beauty. I find the shot of a coyote's eyes reflecting the lights of the city more haunting and memorable than any of the film's actual dialogue or set pieces. Here, they render Miami a good deal brighter and more colorful, giving even the nighttime scenes a lurid, blueish tint.

The handheld shots work in much the same way. Filming from just over an actor's shoulder, or below looking up into their face, Mann gives the film a real you-are-there vibe, one that, as I said before, is occasionally reminiscent of reality TV. In many sequences, it just amps up the film's energy and keeps the pacing brisk. Songs back up directly into one another, running over from one scene to the next, and coupled with a lack of establishing shots or transitions, Mann suggests an entire film as one elongated event.

Other times, Mann and Beebe's experimentation yields even more thrilling results. The audience is placed right in the middle of the final gun battle, in which white supremacist drug dealers face off against a Haitian-based drug ring, the Miami Dade police department and the FBI on the waterfront. Most action sequences are shot from some measure of distance, the purported goal being to give the viewer a sense of the complete picture, allowing for an understanding of the physics and spacing of the stunt or violent conflict. This is more akin to something like Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down. It's an immersive feeling.

This sequence, and a few other shootout scenes featuring high-tech weaponry, features the best sound design I have heard in any film this year. Probably for the last few years. The surround sound in that gun fight has a loud, thudding finality to it, a real and tactile sense for the massive amounts of damage these firearms can do to buildings and human bodies. As Beebe's camera whips around, shrapnel clanging off the ground and explosions blaring in the distance, the sensation of being in the center of the action far outstrips any kind of broader understanding of the gunfight that Mann might give us by backing up into an establishing shot.

It strikes me that Mann accomplishes here what Tony Scott tries unsuccessfully for in films like Domino. He tries to increase the tension in a scene by layering shots over one another and cutting quickly between images. Mann will sometimes leave a single shot on screen for three times as long as an average Tony Scott cut, but his camera's constantly in motion, poking around the scene as a human eye might, constantly scanning for salient details and even darting quickly out of harm's way.

Really, it's this philosophy that underpins the entire film. It's more fun to experience the world of Miami Vice from the inside, focusing on specific outlandish and violent incidents while ignoring the big picture, than it would be to see this kind of story unfold in a more straight-ahead, conventional and concise manner. Sure, this makes it easy to get lost in the shuffle, and it makes it difficult to develop any kind of genuine concern for the characters who inhabit this fanciful, dark world. But screw it. That's not what "Miami Vice" was ever about anyway. It's about sexy people shuttling around cocaine on fast boats while shooting at one another. And it would be hard to conceive of a film doing that kind of thing better than this one.