Film review - Miami Vice (15) (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Film review - Miami Vice (15)

MICHAEL Mann's film version of the cult 1980s television show, on which he was an executive producer, bears little resemblance to the sun-kissed cop drama that made global stars of Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas.

The title and character names may be the same, but this Miami Vice is gritty, grim and resolutely downbeat. Mann and cinematographer Dion Beebe, who collaborated on Collateral, plunge headlong into the less scenic underbelly of a region riddled with drug lords and their gun-toting minions.

Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx's suits are anything but sharp, you're unlikely to see more ill-fitting threads in a 100 million dollar-plus blockbuster, and their dialogue often consists of philosophical mumbo jumbo.

Farrell is Don Johnston, sorry, Sonny Crockett, and Jamie Foxx is Ricardo Tubbs, the role once occupied by Michael Thomas.

They go deep undercover to solve the murders of two federal agents and an informant's entire family.

The evidence leads them to a drugs trafficking ring fronted by the sadistic Luis Tosar and his beautiful Chinese-Cuban wife Gong Li.

They infiltrate the cartel but Farrell finds his objectivity compromised when he embarks on a passionate secret affair with Li.

Miami Vice is a triumph of style over comprehension. Mann's dynamic direction keeps it moving but at a wearisome 132 minutes it can be tough going, especially as the ending is hardly a shock.

Miami Vice (15): Crime drama, directed by Michael Mann. Running time: 132 minutes.

Gazette rating: ***