Under the lens takes a deep look at films by focusing in on one or two particular areas of the picture that helped to define it for better or for worse.
Miami Vice is a 2006 crime thriller directed and written by Michael Mann, it stars Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx along with Gong Li and Naomie Harris. Based on the iconic 1980s TV action/drama, this reboot focuses on vice detectives Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs as their respective personal and professional lives become dangerously intertwined when a mysterious drug lord comes onto the scene.
UNDER THE LENS: EXPERIENCE
Experience: The best way to describe Michael Mann’s picture is not as a movie or story but as an experience. In fact, the story and characters play a backseat to the music, set pieces, environment, and ambiance of the picture. The film drops you right into the action and story and moves at a breathtaking speed, it feels dream-like as we are swiftly introduced to Crockett and Tubbs in a pulsing nightclub, we follow them and listen to the song numb by Linkin Park and Jay Z. We are not asked to understand what is going on, in fact, the picture does not even bother to explain, we are asked to come along for the ride, to experience the dark nightlife of Miami with its Vice cops.
In the classic TV show, Miami was as much a character as the cops, such is the case in this theatrical version. Gone are the pastel larger-than-life archetypes, instead we are introduced to a menacing Miami with thunderclouds and lighting always just off the edge of the horizon. It’s dark, and gritty, and death waits around every corner.
Miami Vice was a product of the 1980s and 2006’s Miami Vice is very much a product of the mid-2000s from its rock music selections to the grimy digital photography of its filmmaking. As the years have gone by this picture has itself become a symbol of its time period, the now out-of-date phones, computers, and clothing, Mann was able to replicate the TV show just in a way none of us expected.
Miami Vice asks you to vibe along with it, to the colors, music, and digital landscapes it inhabits, the film so relies on the viewer experiencing rather than following the story, that one could mute the film, turn up Linkin Park’s album Hybrid Theory and still get just as much out of it. In fact, I would recommend trying it!
HIGHLIGHTS
- Colin Farrell does a good job as Sonny Crockett showcasing a tough but vulnerable man
- The remix of Linkin Park’s “Numb” was a banger and a good choice to include
- Lots of references are included in the show and are fun to spot
QUOTABLE QUOTE
Det. James ‘Sonny’ Crockett: So… then there’s nothing to worry about.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
Have you ever fallen in love with the wrong person? Did you know deep inside they were wrong for you but everything within wanted to keep going? How did you handle that?
CONCLUSION
Miami Vice is a misunderstood picture, one that asks you to leave all your expectations at the door, and simply climb into the sports car with Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs and go along for the ride. To experience the emotions of our characters, to feel the menace of the thunder and lightning and the quick pulse of racing in a cigar boat on your way to Cuba. While Miami Vice is short on character development for our leads Sonny and Rico, we are treated to the development of the true lead character in the picture, the city of Miami. We see its decadence, beauty, and debauchery, it’s a city that lived largely in the 80s and now is old, worn out, and crumbling under the rain and thunder rolling in. Anchored by strong cinematography and a gritty camera view, Miami Vice is an experience that begs you to jump into the Lamborghini and return to its pulsing streets.
