Mann Overboard
Miami Vice
The New York Sun, July 28, 2006
It would be nice to believe that someone, somewhere, someday is going to do a good job translating a much-missed, much-loved television series of my youth onto the big screen, but it's proving a long, long wait. "Bewitched" failed to enchant, "Charlie's Angels" was the work of the devil, "Lost in Space" was adrift in self-importance, "Starsky and Hutch" turned a decent drama into a bad farce, and "The Dukes of Hazzard" transformed a likable hayseed comedy into, well, words fail me.
Despite this dispiriting track record of mediocrity, junk, and exhausted imaginations, it was impossible not be intrigued by the news that Michael Mann, the executive producer of the original "Miami Vice" and the man most responsible for that show's extraordinary panache, was teaming up again with Anthony Yerkovich, the series' creator, to bring Ricardo Tubbs and Sonny Crockett to the movies.With its groundbreaking visual imagery, use of music, and sheer sense of style, "Miami Vice" was television as it had never been seen before: It transformed the notions of what the medium could achieve, and, while it was at it, triggered a fashion revolution and helped define an era's idea of itself.
As if that wasn't enough, Mr. Mann has repeatedly demonstrated that there is more than one clip to his Uzi. "Miami Vice" was followed by the underappreciated "Crime Story,"and, with his effective and unsettling "Manhunter," he gave moviegoers their first taste, so to speak, of Hannibal Lecter.While not all the films he has directed have worked (the last of "The Last of the Mohicans" couldn't come too quickly for me), "Heat," "Collateral," and (despite its preachiness) "The Insider"all confirmed that Mr. Mann's distinctive aesthetic vision and narrative flair have made him one of the most interesting presences in contemporary American cinema.
Maybe it's yet another sign of Mr. Mann's willingness to innovate that this new "Miami Vice" bears so little resemblance to the original show. On the other hand, he may simply have felt that he had no choice: A retro movie set in the 1980s would have been pointless (what more was there to say?), while too literal an updating would have run the risk of turning Sonny Crockett into an Austin Powers in linen, pastel, and stubble. But why stick with the "Miami Vice" name at all? Sadly, that, at least, must have been an easy decision: It remains, deservedly, a powerful brand, and the entertainment industry is nothing if not a greedy business. Mr. Mann's new movie is thus being marketed as the "contemporization" of an old favorite, an ugly word for a worse idea, and something that will give audiences an utterly misleading impression of what they are about to see. It may, of course, make commercial sense, but reviving the old name distracts from what Mr. Mann has done (and detracts from what he could have done) with this film and is, artistically at least, a mistake.
Even more damagingly, Mr. Mann seems to have used the brand's revival as an excuse to revert to the original series' emphasis of style over content.Within the time constraints of an under-an-hour television show, that didn't matter: Style alone could be content enough. But during the course of more than two hours of movie, the absence of a compelling story line might be enough to drive some of the film's audience to the drugs that its heroes are trying so hard to impound.To be sure, when it comes to images of startling loveliness, this movie (helped by the inspired and, that word again — groundbreaking — use of high-definition cameras), does, typically for Mr. Mann, not disappoint, even if his highly romanticized paean to Havana (actually filmed in Uruguay) will probably jar with anyone familiar with the realities of life under Castro. But images, however gorgeous, are not enough, even when punctuated by the spectacularly choreographed gunplay that has long been another Mann trademark, to sustain a full-length film. And in "Miami Vice," they don't.
As for what plot there is, Mr. Mann doesn't go into details and nor will I, but suffice to say it involves drug smuggling, the Aryan Brotherhood, undercover sleuthing, corrupt governments, international criminals, portentous dialogue, speedboats, and a doomed affair. It's also painted on a far broader canvas than the Miami 'n Medellin of the old series, a gesture apparently intended to show that crime, like so much else, is globalizing rapidly, something that should be a revelation to only the slowest among us.
But the key theme of this movie, supposedly, is what going undercover can mean to the cops who choose to do so."You can go too deep," Mr. Mann has explained,"and you have to rely on your partner to pull you back from the edge. As Tubbs says to Crockett,‘There's undercover, and then there's which way is up?"' This could be an interesting enough, if not exactly novel, topic (it featured, incidentally, in the original TV series), but Mr. Mann never gives it the attention it deserves. Compared with the subtle examination of the personalities of the principal characters in "Heat" and "Collateral," Crockett's supposedly existential angst is treated cursorily and comes across as little more than a moment or two of indecision, irritation, and sadness.
Much of the fault for this lies with Colin Farrell's leaden Crockett (an impression reinforced both by his somewhat Neanderthal appearance and a most unfortunate moustache) and his amazing lack of chemistry with his love interest, the strikingly attractive Gong Li (the Chinese actress so remarkable in "Red Sorghum" and "Raise the Red Lantern"), who herself appears forlorn and confused throughout this film. For that matter, there's not much of a bond either between Crockett and Tubbs (Jamie Foxx), that much-vaunted partner of his, who is, remember, meant to care enough about his pal to be "pulling him back from the edge," despite the fact that a more natural response to some of Crockett's behavior would be to shove him over the nearest convenient precipice.
Equally — and it's an example of the way that memories of the old show detract from the new movie — Jamie Foxx, so good as the cabbie in "Collateral," essentially reprises much of that role in a fine performance as a straight-arrow detective that will still leave the nostalgic pining for Philip Michael Thomas and his quirky, more oddball Ricardo. Fans of the TV series will have to make do instead with another "Collateral" graduate, Barry Shabaka Henley, whose impressive (if underused) Lieutenant Castillo hints at the memorably daunting Edward James Olmos of two decades ago.
But if they are to make the most of this movie, those fans would do better to leave nostalgia to re-runs and DVD collections and just try to accept Mr. Mann's movie on its own merits — as a lesser, flawed, but reasonably entertaining and occasionally intriguing police procedural by a director who has shown that he can do far, far better than this.
And next time he probably will.