peteg's blog - noise - movies - 2020 05 23 MiamiVice

Miami Vice

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More Michael Mann completism. Self-cannibalising his 1980s TV show (I've never seen it), he laid on all the ingredients for a solid entry in his oeuvre and yet it never congeals into anything tasty. The cast is mostly squandered. Jamie Foxx does what he can in a nothing role. Naomie Harris! Eddie Marsan! — what an accent. John Ortiz can never get the concern out of his eyes. Colin Farrell plays peak Colin Farrell. I have no idea what was going on with Gong Li. There are vast quantities of guns but no graphic violence. Some exotic locations, poorly used. The best cinematography is classic Mann: American cityscapes at night, now sadly lacking their neon. It's not easy to say what goes wrong with this thing; perhaps the fault is ours, in expecting Scarface or a classic Mann.

Dana Stevens. Obviously Naomie Harris got kidnapped for leverage! As far as I remember they didn't find the mole, or even look too hard beyond the Foxx stratagem. A. O. Scott dug it. I too enjoyed the cinematography. Peter Travers. The trailer park shootout got a proper do-over in one of the True Detectives I think.