My, Oh Miami
Miami Vice (15)
reviewed by David Mahmoudieh at the
UK premier, Leicester Sq, London
Thursday July 27, 2006, a day that will live long in the memory, for it was the day I came face-to-face with one of my ultimate filmmaking idols: Michael Mann.
One of the last great method storytellers of his kind, the reclusive writer/director has been channelling a hidden flamboyancy through the medium of cinema for nearly twenty-five years, and is responsible for such classics as Last of the Mohicans, The Insider, Ali, Collateral - and of course, the ultimate paradoxical character study and perhaps my favourite modern crime saga of all-time, Heat.
(Mann gets his hands dirty on the set of Miam Vice)
For anyone born in the 90’s, or those living in a cave for the past two decades, the original Miami Vice was a cult 80’s TV show depicting the excursions of two Miami cops who dressed like Duran, Duran and solved crimes in hot cars, picking up hot babes along the way.
Well, the name may have stayed the same but just about everything else has changed. For starters there’s no Don ‘Ladies Man’ Johnson or his delightful pet alligator ‘Elvis’ (hey, this was the Eighties) and everybody actually seems to wear socks.
From beginning to end this is a much darker exploration into the enigma of Miami; the blood-towns and drugdrenched neighbourhoods where bullets are traded like baseball cards and anything goes for the right price. But not if resident detectives Sonny Crockett (Colin Farrell) and Ricardo Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) have anything to say about it.
When a security breach blows the deep cover (not to mention a few limbs) right off two covert FBI agents posing as drugdealers, the Feds reluctantly ask for help from the only un-compromised detectives at their disposal, the Miami Vice squad.
Posing for offshore boat racers moonlighting as outlaw smugglers, partners Crockett and Tubbs cross every line of their own law as they seek to win the trust of the scum whose multi-million dollar cargo they’re delivering in a bid to infiltrate a treacherous ring of international drugtrafficking.
Like so many Mann-manifested protagonists, the lines between his characters’ personal and professional existences soon become more blurred and distorted. His style is humanly dark and audacious; choosing to emphasise the dedication of personnel on both sides of the law – stories that journey inwards, not outward – these arcane character explorations which venture deep into those inner middle-grounds of discipline and selfobedience we all face from time to time. Crockett and Tubbs are no exception to that format, though here he chooses to deliver it with a little more grit.
(Foxx at the film's after-party in London)
Mann wants us to know that these characters are real, just like us. Except, of course, they drive lots of fast cars, shoot lots of people and sleep with lots of women. Call me voyeuristic, but I’m quite content just to watch.
And, as always, the eyes never go hungry with Mann.
The visionary director serves up entire banquets of rich, delectable, panorama for us to ogle at. Not least in the form of Chinese actress Gong Li (Memoirs of a Geisha) who plays Isabella, the femme fatale love-interest, heavily implicated in the very shady underworld both Crockett and Tubbs are intent on bringing down.
(The film's after-party was held at the
understated Sanderson Hotel, London)
Although such dangerous surroundings may seem the most unlikeliest of places for anything more than violence to blossom, the sheer impracticality of a forbidden romance helps humanize Mann’s characters, augmenting Crockett and Tubbs' personas beyond the confides of the banal clichés of “rogue cops”.
And before long, it's Crockett’s feelings that threaten to jeopardise the entire operation, with Tubbs also finds himself making tough decisions – both private and in the name of duty – the subsequent ripple effects of which lure the duo into a final bout of mind-blowing gunplay that is worth the admission fee alone.
(Mann on set, churning words into
images in his private little corner)
As you’ve no doubt already gathered by now, I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m in absolute awe of Mann as a story-teller and wholly subscribe to his breed of grandeur filmmaking.
Yet despite my obvious unreserved admiration for the director, his film isn’t without some flaws that even I must attest to.
For starters the editing is jagged and confusing, often leaving the viewer playing catch-up. Add to this a quite literally thrown-in-at-the-deep-end beginning to proceedings, with no back-stories – minus any explanation of how, where and why – and the final sum of all events for Crockett and Tubbs is a somewhat confusing supposition.
Not quite up there with his best, but certainly not down with the worst of this summer’s over-hyped disenchantments, Miami Vice won’t be everyone’s cup. It’s relatively predictable. It’s incoherent. And in all honesty, it’s probably a story that would’ve been more original if told twenty-years ago. But a tale of this kind couldn’t be in better hands. And that’s just it, regardless of its imperfections - Mann still delivers it with style.
© David Mahmoudieh 2006
SEE MY INTERVIEW WITH MANN BELOW
Miami Vice (15)
reviewed by David Mahmoudieh at the
UK premier, Leicester Sq, London
Thursday July 27, 2006, a day that will live long in the memory, for it was the day I came face-to-face with one of my ultimate filmmaking idols: Michael Mann.
One of the last great method storytellers of his kind, the reclusive writer/director has been channelling a hidden flamboyancy through the medium of cinema for nearly twenty-five years, and is responsible for such classics as Last of the Mohicans, The Insider, Ali, Collateral - and of course, the ultimate paradoxical character study and perhaps my favourite modern crime saga of all-time, Heat.
(Mann gets his hands dirty on the set of Miam Vice)
For anyone born in the 90’s, or those living in a cave for the past two decades, the original Miami Vice was a cult 80’s TV show depicting the excursions of two Miami cops who dressed like Duran, Duran and solved crimes in hot cars, picking up hot babes along the way.
Well, the name may have stayed the same but just about everything else has changed. For starters there’s no Don ‘Ladies Man’ Johnson or his delightful pet alligator ‘Elvis’ (hey, this was the Eighties) and everybody actually seems to wear socks.
From beginning to end this is a much darker exploration into the enigma of Miami; the blood-towns and drugdrenched neighbourhoods where bullets are traded like baseball cards and anything goes for the right price. But not if resident detectives Sonny Crockett (Colin Farrell) and Ricardo Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) have anything to say about it.
When a security breach blows the deep cover (not to mention a few limbs) right off two covert FBI agents posing as drugdealers, the Feds reluctantly ask for help from the only un-compromised detectives at their disposal, the Miami Vice squad.
Posing for offshore boat racers moonlighting as outlaw smugglers, partners Crockett and Tubbs cross every line of their own law as they seek to win the trust of the scum whose multi-million dollar cargo they’re delivering in a bid to infiltrate a treacherous ring of international drugtrafficking.
Like so many Mann-manifested protagonists, the lines between his characters’ personal and professional existences soon become more blurred and distorted. His style is humanly dark and audacious; choosing to emphasise the dedication of personnel on both sides of the law – stories that journey inwards, not outward – these arcane character explorations which venture deep into those inner middle-grounds of discipline and selfobedience we all face from time to time. Crockett and Tubbs are no exception to that format, though here he chooses to deliver it with a little more grit.
(Foxx at the film's after-party in London)
Mann wants us to know that these characters are real, just like us. Except, of course, they drive lots of fast cars, shoot lots of people and sleep with lots of women. Call me voyeuristic, but I’m quite content just to watch.
And, as always, the eyes never go hungry with Mann.
The visionary director serves up entire banquets of rich, delectable, panorama for us to ogle at. Not least in the form of Chinese actress Gong Li (Memoirs of a Geisha) who plays Isabella, the femme fatale love-interest, heavily implicated in the very shady underworld both Crockett and Tubbs are intent on bringing down.
(The film's after-party was held at the
understated Sanderson Hotel, London)
Although such dangerous surroundings may seem the most unlikeliest of places for anything more than violence to blossom, the sheer impracticality of a forbidden romance helps humanize Mann’s characters, augmenting Crockett and Tubbs' personas beyond the confides of the banal clichés of “rogue cops”.
And before long, it's Crockett’s feelings that threaten to jeopardise the entire operation, with Tubbs also finds himself making tough decisions – both private and in the name of duty – the subsequent ripple effects of which lure the duo into a final bout of mind-blowing gunplay that is worth the admission fee alone.
(Mann on set, churning words into
images in his private little corner)
As you’ve no doubt already gathered by now, I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m in absolute awe of Mann as a story-teller and wholly subscribe to his breed of grandeur filmmaking.
Yet despite my obvious unreserved admiration for the director, his film isn’t without some flaws that even I must attest to.
For starters the editing is jagged and confusing, often leaving the viewer playing catch-up. Add to this a quite literally thrown-in-at-the-deep-end beginning to proceedings, with no back-stories – minus any explanation of how, where and why – and the final sum of all events for Crockett and Tubbs is a somewhat confusing supposition.
Not quite up there with his best, but certainly not down with the worst of this summer’s over-hyped disenchantments, Miami Vice won’t be everyone’s cup. It’s relatively predictable. It’s incoherent. And in all honesty, it’s probably a story that would’ve been more original if told twenty-years ago. But a tale of this kind couldn’t be in better hands. And that’s just it, regardless of its imperfections - Mann still delivers it with style.
© David Mahmoudieh 2006
SEE MY INTERVIEW WITH MANN BELOW
posted by David Mahmoudieh at 7:51 PM
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