Movie Review: Miami Vice

Sunday, July 30, 2006

NOTE: Contains spoilers.
This weekend, Michael Mann brought Miami Vice to the big screen. The movie based loosely on the characters he made famous in the late 80s television series of the same name come to vivid life and we're jumped right into the thick of things the moment the film starts as Colin Farrell's, Sonny Crockett, fills the screen and Numb/Encore begins to play. This movie may be nothing like the television series it is trying to portray. The only similarity to that long gone show and this movie today is the name of the main characters.

However, as I sat in the movie theater watching the movie, I realized the movie of today couldn't really stay true to the series of yesterday. I was a fan of the series. I was nine when it came out, and I watched it each and every week. I fell in love with Don Johnson's sockless loafers and pastels. It worked back then. It's only been twenty years, but times are drastically different than were then. The criminals are smarter. Technology is different. Everything has changed, and this movie had to recognize that. The characters may be the same, but the time certainly isn't.

In this film, we see our undercover cops start out the night on one case, and end up doing something else when a deal goes bad and one of their past informants gets outed. In the process the man loses his family and then takes his own life. Sonny and Rico soon learn that there is a leak somewhere between the FBI, DEA and various other agencies involved. However, Miami P.D. isn't in the mix, so this frees the two to go in undercover.

Their mission is to find the leak and take down those involved. Their first target being Jose Yero. However, upon their first meeting Sonny and Rico realize there is more than just Yero involved. He is merely a middle man working with a much larger fish. This changes things, and Sonny in his mind changes the mission. He escalates the stakes and he puts his eye on an even larger prize, Isabella, the woman attached to the operation and the man he is after. The two quickly heat up, but both know that nothing will ever happen passed the moments they are allowed to share. She belongs to someone else. Sonny does use their relationship to successfully raise the stakes though.

As things continue on, we discover the leak, see one of their own taken hostage by the group responsible for the original killings. The team has to go in to save their fellow officer, and then they need to take down Yero and those responsible. We find out Yero is actually behind the killings as well and in contact with the leak. By the end, Isabella finds the man she had been falling for is a cop, and Sonny goes against everything to get her out of the life she has lived and not arrested like she should be. They both knew they could never last, and that becomes even more clear once he is exposed for what he is.

The movie itself was action filled, but it also had its moments where things slowed down considerably. Almost too slow in parts in fact. The romance between Sonny and Isabella was done well, and I think I enjoyed their scenes in Cuba the most. Some scenes had me scratching my head, but all in all it was a good movie. It didn't stay true to the series, but as I explained earlier it really couldn't. As a fan of the series, I didn't feel let down by the differences. In fact I enjoyed this movie for what it was, a re-make for a series I totally enjoyed. Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx slip in believably to the characters of the two undercover cops, and they bring their own style to it. Colin Farrell may not be Don Johnson, but he does well here. I'd recommend checking out the movie if you can in theaters or when it is released on DVD.