Unlike other recent film versions of TV shows like The Dukes of Hazzard, Starsky & Hutch and Bewitched, which toyed with the innate campness of their source material, Miami Vice plays it straight.

 

Deadly straight, actually.

 

It's so self-serious at times, it'll prompt you to laugh out loud at moments that aren't supposed to be funny. Which is a total letdown because, theoretically, this is Michael Mann's pure, true vision, now that he's free from the television decency standards that constrained him when his series was at the height of its pop-culture prowess in the mid-1980s.

 

Although the film, which premiered in the US last Friday and will debut in Europe in early August, looks fantastic. It's shot in intense, intimate high-definition like Collateral, in which Mann explored the seedy side of Los Angeles with Jamie Foxx in the driver's seat.

 

 

A scene from Miami Vice features an intimate moment between Crockett (Colin Farrell) and Isabella (Gong Li).

 

It's still a sexy, rock 'n' roll world of crime and corruption that the ever-fashionable vice cops Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs inhabit. And a couple of shoot-outs are inordinately creative in their violence and bloodshed. (You truly feel as if you're in the back seat when high-powered rifle fire pierces the windshield, then the bad-guy driver, then the leather seat. It's disturbing and, at the same time, extremely cool.)

 

But the story is simultaneously convoluted and forgettable (it has something to do with the duo infiltrating a drug cartel to determine the source of an intelligence leak). It's actually quite easy to lose track of what these people are supposed to be doing while they're zooming around in expensive convertibles and slashing by speedboat through Biscayne Bay.

 

This time, Foxx rides shotgun as Tubbs to Colin Farrell's Crockett. And he's woefully underused, even though he clearly serves as the film's sole source of depth, while Farrell gets the corny lines.

 

No pastel T-shirts or white linen suits like Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas used to wear; everything in this modern-day Miami setting comes in dark, understated shades of steely blue and grey. The most striking style statement is Farrell's hair: You'll sit there mentally debating, is that a mullet or not? And does playing an undercover detective dictate that he has to wear that porn-star moustache?

 

These guys don't screw around, though, and that can be thrilling to watch. They bust in, kick butt, blow things up and leave, all in time to grab a couple of mojitos afterwards. But don't expect any buddy-cop banter from this incarnation of Crockett and Tubbs. They're all business, and Mann, as writer-director, has made a refreshing choice by not trying to force a cutesy friendship on them.

 

Tubbs has his partner's back when Crockett gets involved with the dangerous Isabella (Gong Li), the cartel's money launderer. Gong, long a favorite actress of Chinese director Zhang Yimou, is stunningly gorgeous as always, but often incomprehensible in a rare English-language role. (Many actors are, though; the frequently muffled dialogue seems to have been intentional. It's definitely off-putting.)

 

But her scenes with Farrell, which include an impromptu jaunt to Havana for all-night drinks and dancing, exude an undeniable heat.

 

Crockett knows it's stupid to get involved with Isabella, who's already involved with the deadly Montoya (Luis Tosar), who runs the cartel. The question that lingers throughout Miami Vice is: Is he really into her? Or merely wielding his sexy bad-boy wiles to get close to her and extract information? The duality of his identity, and the few moments of introspection he allows himself, result in some of the film's most cringe-worthy moments.

 

But they're not as bad as the entire performance from John Ortiz, who clearly watched Scarface too many times in preparation for his role as mid-level drug runner Jose Yero.

 

He never asks you to say hello to his little friend, but you suspect he could at any moment. Miami Vice, a Universal Pictures release, runs 133 minutes. Two stars out of four.

 

(China Daily July 31, 2006)