|
Considering the kitsch mentality of the original TV show - that played out as if a weekly hour long fashion show-cum-music video - it comes as somewhat of a surprise that its 2006 namesake is the least frivolous of all the Summer blockbusters. Edgy and intense - two adjectives that were most-likely never used to describe the eighties TV show (although as a naive typical teenager of the day, I probably did consider it just that at the time) - this newer, meaner Miami Vice - which only really holds the slightest of resemblances to its predecessor (a quick audial glimpse of the original theme song hidden behind tracks of a hip hop nightclub remix and the closing credit cover of Phil Collins' In the Air Tonight, are pretty much the only connective tissue here, outside of the iconic names Crockett and Tubbs) - goes infinitely deeper and darker than the show ever dared to go.
Michael Mann (creator, producer and writer of the original series) is at the helm here, showing off his trademarked glossy look in the harsh reality of digital video, and in essence this is probably his best film yet - or at least his most provocative. More serious than the half-breed, visually stimulating yet ultimately silly parlour tricked films he has attempted in the past. I always said he had it in him to create a great film, and I was so disappointed in how his last film, the slickly manicured Collateral fell to pieces in its final act. Here is that great film - from start to finish.
Always one to try to tip mainstream movie-making on its collective ass, Mann plays with the concept of Miami Vice as some sort of genre experiment that only he - the mad macho maestro that he is - can decipher and splay out as a near-perfect lubricious blend of Hollywood glitz and independently minded virility that it is. Full of bull perhaps, but that bull is exactly the kick in the ass that an idea like Miami Vice has needed all along, and Mann is just the kind of visually spectacular bullshitter that can do it - and has done it.
Going in with only half-hearted faith toward the director (Mann has always been a half-totalized auteur up til now) and a less-than full-bodied expectation for the story (the TV show was the epitome of the eighties pretty-but-dumb mindset) I came out with what I am sure was a shocked look of awe upon my face. A total surprise on every level - and isn't that what we want from a motion picture? Isn't that lack of surprise what is so wrong about most Hollywood films these days? I am rather confidant that when the end of the year rolls around I will still be proclaiming Miami Vice one of the best films of 2006.
-July 31, 2006
|
