Small screen to big screen adaptation is a bust.
We can all breathe a collective sigh of relief that this 80’s show big screen adaptation doesn’t follow in the recent footsteps of crime fighting trio of girls and a friend named Charlie or a pair of cops (one blond one brown haired) driving a red torino. The pastel-colored garb might be found in our faded memories or 6th row drawer of our summer cottages, but the fast cars, the designer wear, the nightlife and sexiness are drawn upon but not highlighted in director series creator Michael Mann s more noir blend. Miami Vice circa 2006 is R-rated and contains some typical a la carte Michael Mann compositions, but the Crockett and Tubbs portrayed in this big budget production couldn’t be more bland.
Filming during tropical storm season means that some rooftop shots at days’ end and fuzzy handheld foregrounds make for great compositions and the many bird’s eye view shots from above of speedboats splitting waves are nice visuals to ponder upon, but while the creator of the very fashionable television series manages to graft a film that might look great, this reinvention contains very little in terms of memorable characters, intriguing storyline or serious dialogue substance. Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx play a Crockett and Tubbs that don’t play off one another as they once did in the series – the lack of chemistry makes one wonder if the two would actually visit one another on Barbeque Sundays, let alone dismantle a cartel from the bottom up. While it takes years and more likely decades to infiltrate such an organization, here the sexual process and lovely brown-haired do that Farrell carries belong to character actions and motivations are laughable especially everything that involves the Gong Li character. Li is inaudible, and her business woman sense and the thought this character could be such a player or pond in the downfall of the organization is far-fetched. She comes across like a foreign exchange student discovering how it might feel to fall for a white man. When millions of dollars are exchanging hands the drug underworld should be a lot more threatening than this.
Mann’s ambitious multiple-location tropical tour places the storyline in several globe-trotting destinations that one will never find on a tourist map and while such locales might be a great-looking entrance point to a seedy underworld the script brings out god-awful machismo characters with pony tails and trophy accomplice business partner wives who act tough but are everything but. It might have looked great in films like Scarface, but today, it only reminds us that this is Hollywood’s interpretation of the kingpin world.
Miami Vice might have great visuals in the globe trotting form of ambitious day and night shootings but it doesn’t have a script to match – phony encounters between the undercover and the kingpins, a romantic interlude that fails to convince and is as fake as the pivotal gun battle scene. Sound effects prove to be ample in efficiency but those waiting for the trademark score to might want to look into that old shoe box filled of cassette tapes.
