I didn’t watch “Miami Vice” when it was on TV, but I doubt it had the dark, brooding atmosphere of the Michael Mann movie of the same name. Colin Farrell takes the role that made Don Johnson famous (Sonny Crocket), and Jamie Foxx plays his partner, Ricardo Tubbs. The movie follows the pair into deep cover as drug runners for a powerful Colombian drug cartel with the goal of flushing out the identity of FBI informants for the cartel. Things get more complicated in a hurry when Sonny falls for one of the bad guys (not literally), played by Gong Li, and the rest of the bad guys don’t trust their new American partners who are too good to be true. The bad guys are portrayed as realistically pragmatic, smart, and ruthless as are, in their own way, the good guys. But the bad guys are really, really bad, and over the course of the movie Mann manages to foster a serious dislike of these people in the audience without being overly manipulative. While there are some flashy raceboat scenes, the movie generally has an air of gritty realism. The gun battles in particular are well done, capturing the chaos and avoiding overdone explosions or ridiculously mis-matched shooters (both sides have deadly aim). This culminates in a particularly satisfying showdown. My main criticism is that at nearly two and a half hours, the movie drags at times.
Somehow, it doesn’t sound like something i want to see…