Miami Vice (DVD) > Reviews (10)

FILM REVIEW ONLY

As a huge fan of the original 1980's TV series starring Don Johnson and Phillip Michael Thomas I looked forward with great anticipation to this 2006 movie spin off starring Irish actor Colin Farrell as Sonny Crockett and American actor Jamie Foxx as his sidekick and partner Ricardo Tubbs.

What added to my anticipation is that the movie was produced and directed by Michael Mann, who was responsible for the original TV series. So I expected great things. Unfortunately I was to be hugely disappointed.

The movie simply isn't a patch on the original series, and while the acting from the two main characters is passable (they're both excellent actors) the storyline is both muddled and unbelievable and the character development totally non-existent.

The story (such as it is) has Crockett and Tubbs working undercover to track down a team of drug barons who are flooding Miami with all sorts of naughty substances. (Some things never change!) You have the obligatory Ferraris, speed boats and designer clothes that so enhanced the original TV series, but somehow in the movie it simply doesn't seem to come together.

You even have the song "In The Air Tonight" by Phil Collins that was used to great effect in an episode of the TV show, but this time it is a cover version by a Miami rock band called "Nonpoint".

The dialogue between Crockett and Tubbs is often banal, and to make matters worse is often mumbled, so you find yourself actually straining to hear what they are saying on more than one occasion.

Of course, there's the love angle, with Crockett (somewhat implausibly) falling for one of the baddies in the form of Isabella, a Chinese drug smuggler ably played by Chinese actress Gong Li, and Tubbs falling for a police colleague Dectective Trudy Joplin (Naomie Harris). While both actresses provide admirable eye candy for male viewers they do little else to redeem the movie.

When the plot isn't confusing the life out of you it simply drags, and even the action and chase sequences aren't enough to stimulate much more than passing interest. What makes it worse is that the movie is very long, running for over 2 hours.

I have this movie in my DVD collection (recorded from Sky Movies) in order to ensure my Miami Vice collection is complete, but when I want a fix of Crockett and Tubbs it's not this film I reach for but the absolutely marvellous complete box set of the original TV series.

Michael Mann somehow lost his way with this movie, and it's not one that I could in any way recommend.

If you still insist in watching it then the DVD can be bought for buttons over the Web.

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© KenJ April 2009

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