Fri., Jul. 28, 2006 12:00 AM PDT
No pastels, no unstructured jackets and no awesome syntho-pop score. This is a
Miami Vice for the aughties--violent, gritty and grim. Maybe too grim. Writer-director
Michael Mann updates the iconic '80s series with
Colin Farrell and
Jamie Foxx as everyone's fave hipster detectives. After an FBI sting goes wrong, the vice guys pose as smugglers in order to infiltrate a Colombian drug-trafficking ring.
Throwing in several snarly baddies and lots of speeding boats and planes and cars--plus, a cool climactic shootout--Mann's the man for creating foreboding environments and intense action sequences. But there's surprisingly little chemistry or interplay between the two leads (shouldn't this be a buddy movie?), and Foxx is given precious little to do. Thank goodness for Gong Li as the cartel's financial officer. The pic picks up once she and Farrell head to Havana for some
mojitos, merengue and macking. Too bad the rest of
Miami isn't as fun.
--
Matt Stevens
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