Miami Vice

Whilst in the middle of an operation, Sonny Crocket takes a panicked call from an informant that tells him very little but tells him enough to work out that some drug operation is going wrong. Things have indeed gone very wrong with an inter-agency undercover operation that has left the DEA nowhere. As local officers Crockett and Tubbs are unknown quantities to the drug runners they are recruited to infiltrate the existing network and continue the operation. The dangers are obvious but even with that knowledge the pair find themselves getting deeper than planned.

I can barely remember the television series because I never really cared for it as a child. I say this because I am about to spend a few hundred words randomly lashing out at the 2006 version of it and I don't want you to think that it is for a reason as basic as me just having a soft spot for the original. No, my actual problems with the film are with the film and not as a result of some childhood memory, nostalgia or "retro-cool" view that some may have. The film opens well by jumping straight into the story, forgoing the usual character introductions etc that this type of film normally does. However after this the plot becomes a fairly dull affair that drags along a path that is hard to follow.

Part of the reason it is hard to follow is because I stopped caring after about half of the film but it is also worth mentioning that the script appears to have been turned into mumbling in the ADR and a lot of dialogue is hard to hear. It doesn't really flow that well either, partly because the scenes are blunt and edited in a really weird style. Unlike many viewers I actually quite liked the digital video cinematography for how it looked. Sure it looked gritty and dark and perhaps not what you expect from a film that cost this much, but I did like it. Problem I had with it though was that it didn't suit the material. Credit to Mann for trying something but the visual feel would have worked better with a film with much more substance and grit, as it is it feels like a soulless cop thriller trying to dress up as something else.

The long dull scenes don't help and personally I found all the sex and montage scenes to be embarrassingly lame – just like too much of the soundtrack. Speaking of lame, the performances are roundly poor. Farrell is dumped in a terrible moustache and left with no character to speak of. He lacks any presence and his performance consists of just staring into the sunset and being moody. Foxx benefits from at least looking cool but he does much of the same. Together they have no chemistry at all and they are part of the film being as dull as it is. Gong Li is wasted. Her section of the film should have added heart and character to the film, but it isn't there in the script and she ends up just soft-focus frolicking with Farrell instead. Wonderful rising British star Harris is equally poor. With no character to speak of she focuses on doing her accent, which is OK but the direction pushes her too hard with the script and it doesn't really work.

Overall then a roundly poor, dull film that has little going on in the script, story or characters. It looks all serious and grown up thanks to the cinematography but it is nothing of the sort, with mumbled dialogue, superficial characters and a plot that offers little apart from the occasional moment of excitement here and there.