Miami Vice

Michael Mann, USA / Germany, 2006
1 out of 4 stars

I was intrigued when this film started showing up on all kinds of top 10 lists, but my reaction to this film’s inexplicable year-end celebration is summed up by a talkback comment, regrettably one I can’t find a link for, that read something to the effect of, “Oh, I didn’t realize that the reason I was bored out of my mind is it was supposed to be an art film.” Michael Mann has certainly done good work in the past, but giving him any credit for this piece of nonsense is certainly as good a case of the auteur theory run amuck as I can think of. The alternative theory would be that if there’s no joy in it, it must be “good” for you. But what use is there for a film that has no joy, no beauty, no energy, and no anything.

This is just an all-around dreary, listless affair, with ugly digital cinematography (it worked in Mann’s Collateral but it sure doesn’t work here), tacky dialogue (even if it is deliberately so, it’s just a trial to listen to), an aimless, unengaging story, a near-total lack of action… even the music is bad! The cast is either poor (puppy-dog sleazeball Collin Ferrell), misused (Gong Li, who just looks lost), or perhaps some of both (Jamie Foxx, who I think was more interesting before he somehow achieved instant stardom. The worst of it is that there is hardly any action in the film, and when you finally get a shootout, it is deliberately muddled and scattershot. Maybe there was a point here, but it was all I could do to not just turn off the DVD player at the one-hour mark. Avoid at all costs, no matter what the critics say!

Source: Universal DVD
17 January, 11:15 PM

Collateral

Michael Mann, USA, 2004
4 out of 4 stars

There’s no denying that the flawless style of Michael Mann is the main reason this movie is as remarkable as it is. However, this is also the movie that made me a big Jamie Foxx fan, even though I’ve still never seen Ray. Much like Damon Wayons in Bamboozled, I sensed both times I watched this film that Foxx was basing his role off of one of his comic personas, specifically the passive loser. Spike Lee talks on the Bamboozled DVD about using comic (black) actors in dramatic roles because he believes they’re capable of more (and probably because he hopes to redeem the buffoonish portrayal of blacks in film) and he was right; he just had the wrong guy.

Wayans never managed to rise above the level of preprogrammed comic persona, whereas Foxx, despite my initial skepticism on the first viewing, does a fantastic job at slowly progressing his character through a sometimes-ludicrous series of transformations and epiphanies, mostly revolving around how he both reacts against and is molded by Tom Cruise’s villain character (and Cruise-as-villain seems rather prescient now that people have turned against him; today, Foxx might well have gotten the top-billing he deserved).

I’ve read criticisms about the plot in spite of the style, but honestly, I’m not bothered by any of it, not even the ending that I’ve seen criticized the most frequently. What I love about this movie is that it’s a mainstream film that beats most art films at their own game. It doesn’t actually have to be so polarized. Imagine that.

Source: Universal DVD
20 July, 8:08 PM