Miami Vice(2006)

OUR REVIEW
by Dave White

Who's in It: Jamie Foxx, Colin Farrell, Gong Li, Naomie Harris
The Basics: Crockett and Tubbs have not aged one bit since 1985. That's weird! They still chase the bad guys in deep cover, and their personal lives still keep getting mixed up in it, which I think makes them bad at their jobs, right?

What's the Deal? Do not approach this movie like it's some kind of campy "I Heart the '80s" moment. It's stone-faced and serious. Because this is Michael Mann, a director so exacting that Entertainment Weekly just reported that he banned the color red from the film. This guy gives you deliberate character studies and moody art-house techniques in his big-budget Hollywood pictures. He demands that you think he's important. It would be annoying if his movies weren't mostly great.

The Violence Tastes Violence-y-er: I like a good bloodbath as much as the next moviegoer. But what's really powerful here is that the violence is reserved for the moments when it really deserves to be in the movie. And it's delivered with a major punch.

Anybody Out There Seen Shanghai Triad? It's this early '90s movie Gong Li was in, where she played the lone woman who was in with a powerful drug lord. Sort of like here. No spoilers or anything, but the character's fate is similar to here, too.

Amount of Actual Red: None deliberately inserted, it's true. No red clothes on major characters, no red sets, nothing but blood, stop lights, car brakes, T-shirts on extras and one sloppily painted wall they pass by in one scene. Yeah, I was looking for it. But still. There was red. Technically.