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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Miami Vice - the movie, the music, the boatshoes

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01:56 / 09.05.06

On July 28th 2006, a new film based on the hit television series Miami Vice will appear in theatres. It will be directed by the influential and highly acclaimed Michael Mann, who previously wowed audiences with Collateral, which was the first film to be shot with the Thomson Viper, a digital camera. This new film is expected to also be shot with it.

Mann is well known for a heavy use of pop music and highly iconic visuals, such as the Armani suit jackets, pastel T-shirts, boatshoes and five o'clock shadow or the silver hair of Tom Cruise. He is also well-known for ridiculously extensive rehearsal sessios one on one with the actors, not just the leads. I think it was Cruise that said that working with Mann is going through acting school from the very beginning. Mann always gets the best possible performance out of an actor. Will Smith's performance aAli was almost perfect. During most of the film, I completely forgot I was watching the Fresh Prince.

I am really excited for this movie for a couple of reasons. There is something very viseral and primitive about Mann's filmaking style. It's deceptively simple and basic, his approach. For example, Heat appears to be a cat-and-mouse game between a cop and a thief, but their relationship to each other and to their respective "families" is the most important part of the movie.

And here is the iconic outfit as worn by the lead, Colin Farrell, who is playing Sonny Crockett, while Jamie Foxx is playing Ricardo Tubbs. One of my major crushes, Justin Theroux also appears in the film.

This movie is not going to be Starsky and Hutch or Charlie's Angels; Mann is not going to play the movie as post-modern or tongue-in-cheek. It's going to be played straight-faced. Some early reviews of the film say that its seriousness is its major flaw, as well as its bloated running time. Its first cut was almost three hours.

So what do you fine people out there think? Are you excited? Did you like the original series? Have you ever seen it? If not, click here and here.

The Official Site
Rotten Tomatoes' page
Wikipedia's article.

02:03 / 09.05.06

By the way, the thread summary politely refers to this post and Ganesh's subsequent reply.

P. Horus Rhacoid

04:32 / 09.05.06

Crockett wearing socks? WTF?

More substantially: I've seen the original show a few times and enjoyed it, but... aside from not being a particularly good show, Vice is very much rooted in the '80s for me. A lot of its charm lies in how dated it feels. I can't see an update being worthwhile without the retro feel. Or, for that matter, Don Johnson, because I can't see Colin Farrell achieving anything near the requisite nasal cockiness. The same goes for, I dunno, Knight Rider. I mean, come on, what would Knight Rider be without David Hasselhoff and the pixellated stick figures on KITT's monitor?

Actually, in thinking about it, the idea of a 3 hour episode of Miami Vice puts its fingers squarely on my yawn/gag reflex. I figure Don Johnson might be able to push it to two hours on the smarm oozing off his body alone (maybe not, though- I've seen part of one of the Vice full-length movies but I think I fell asleep during it), but three? I can think of few crueller things.

And seriously, socks? I really hope Colin Farrell's just resting his feet in between takes or something because, hello?

04:43 / 09.05.06

Crockett wearing socks? WTF?
Those guys mighta looked cool back in the 80s, but Crockett's coming off very Azzarello supporting low life character in that shot.

Keith, like a scientist

12:32 / 09.05.06

I'll pretty much see anything Mann does. Heat remains one of my favorite films, with Insider and Collateral following close behind.

Mann's short lived TV show was also quite good, and definitely had his style on it.

It's interesting that Mann is once again taking something he created for television and remaking it for the screen. Heat was originally a TV-movie.

Miami Vice was a favorite as a kid, so this should be fun for nostalgia's sake, if anything.

21:31 / 09.05.06

I don't think Mann created Miami Vice per se, but definitely had a hand in its production and style.

21:45 / 09.05.06

I'm fairly neutral on Miami Vice. It wasn't particularly one of my bugbears in the other thread, and I have no real opinion on the celluloid remake. I don't suppose I'll be rushing out to see it, but I doubt it'll have me grinding my tusks in rage either.

Keith, like a scientist

00:03 / 10.05.06

Ah. You're right, Matt. I was always under the impression he created it.

I believe he did create Robbery Homicide Division which was quite short-lived, but was his first use of the digital camera style on Collateral. Thought it was a pretty decent cop show (seemed to prefigure The Shield a bit in it's tone). Also, choosing Deltron 3030 for your theme song is auto-bonus points.

00:18 / 10.05.06

I may be right about the creation bit, but for all intents and purposes, the success and influence of the show came from its producer, Mann, who pioneered the music/no-bg noise style and the fashion. Also, he is said to have given the composer free reign on score.

14:43 / 10.05.06

weird show. real tension between the fact that they're chasing no good scum sucking coke dealers all the time, and the camera being utterly in love with miami's hedonistic nightlife. like coke=bad, but extravagant parties fuelled by masses of coke=good.

the movie? sgot colin farrell in it. no one would actually go and watch a film with him in it, would they? shite, obviously.

14:46 / 10.05.06

I would; I quite like Colin Farrell. It's probably fair enough, though, to say his past record is... patchy.

15:04 / 10.05.06

they're chasing no good scum sucking coke dealers all the time, and the camera being utterly in love with miami's hedonistic nightlife. like coke=bad, but extravagant parties fuelled by masses of coke=good.

Ah yes, the eternal struggle of all cop fiction: where is the line between cop and criminal? The blurring of the distinctions is what makes great police fiction, like James Ellroy for example. The tension between the identities is what makes Miami Vice so good. The show often played on the criminal acts that the cop are tempted to do and often do in order to get the criminal. Tubbs especially.

Keith, like a scientist

15:16 / 10.05.06

the movie? sgot colin farrell in it. no one would actually go and watch a film with him in it, would they? shite, obviously.

Well, The New World is quite worth seeing, even given him being in it.

And he's the ONLY good part of Daredevil. Totally brilliant Bullseye, I thought.

17:44 / 10.05.06

Will Edward James Olmos be in it? Because he was the one coolest dude in the series, IMNSHO. I really liked the way he would go through entire seasons without changing his facial expression and/of tone of voice even once.

02:53 / 12.05.06

QT Trailer right here.

19:48 / 14.05.06

I'm loving the new trailer, and this is the only summer blockbuster I'm actually looking forward to seeing this summer. Michael Mann alone makes any film worth seeing, especially in the crime genre. This looks like just completely stylish pop, and then throw in Gong Li who's a great actress and not bad to look at either. I didn't see Memoirs of a Geisha, so I'm curious to see how she works in an American film.

The Natural Way

14:52 / 17.05.06

A very minor thing, Matt: Mann might have been big on Phil Collins in Miami Vice, but I can't recall him ever using pop music in any of his films. It's all moody synths complementing serious headed men, innit?

22:21 / 17.05.06

Shadow on the Sun by Audioslave in the car accident scene in Collateral. It's a bit of a stretch, but the song itself is kind of a moody alt-rock piece. It's a very mid-tempo rocker that builds up energy. A perfect fit for the scene, actually.

Also, Manhunter makes use of Iron Butterfly during the climax. While Heat makes use of two Moby songs. Ali features a lot of Sam Cooke songs, and has a Sam Cooke impersonator. And going further back, The Keep (based on the awful Paul F Wilson novel) has Tangerine Dream on the soundtrack.

All of this came from memory or IMDB.

02:37 / 18.05.06

I'm gonna watch the hell outta this movie.

02:47 / 18.05.06

I really didn't (and don't) care for the TV series, but then, I can't remember anything for the big screen that Mann's done and I haven't enjoyed at least a little bit. Actually, his last three or so films I've enjoyed the hell out of, despite niggling little bits of implausibility or badness. If the entire handling of the woman at the end of 'Collateral' can't keep me from loving the movie, no cheesy costuming, no parodic acting... let's just say if I actually don't enjoy it at all, I shall be terribly disappointed beyond the actual movie. Which, is an accomplishment all on its own.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

12:23 / 16.06.06

One of the Moby songs on Heat was a cover of Joy Division's a New Dawn Fades, in Manhunter he used 80's goth/alternative band Shreikback, the original Miami Vice series had a fair amount of pop in it Phil (it may in fact be why Phil gets so much respect from the Hip Hop fraternity, something which always baffled me), the Pointer Sisters etc. but also stuff like U2 and even PIL would pop up as well as of course Don Henley, predictably the Doors were used in at least one Vietnam related episode. There was a pretty good mix of music.

I believe it was Anthony Yerkovich (who went on to do 24) who created Vice, Mann was the executive producer. In terms of the blurring the boundaries between cop and criminal as well as the conflict involved in being undercover to my knowledge Vice was the first cop show to tackle these ideas. They way they did it may seem a little primitive now but I think they cleared the way for a lot of other crime dramas. It was a pretty ground breaking show.

Mann is my favorite director and crime is my favorite genre for him to direct. I'm also a huge Miami Vice fan having grown up with the show, though as I watch it on DVD now it does come across very much as a slightly silly historical drama. Basically this is the film I'm most looking forward to, disproportionatly so in fact. Just a shame that Dante Spinotti isn't shooting it.

I like Foxx and thought he was pretty good in Collatorel, Farrel I've been convinced since Tigerland that he could act but was just choosing projects stupidly, mind you he's pretty good in the New World, though his character does so many stupid things you end up screaming at the TV.

Hell it might be even better than Bad Boys 2.

12:55 / 16.06.06

I must admit that I would go and see a Colin Farrell film actually because he was in it, because unfortunately I find that whole low-rent sleaze thing unbearably hot.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

02:18 / 26.06.06

This is one of the few TV series into movie things I might go see, mostly because the first year or two of the series were visually arresting, if dramatically empty. Mann knows how to make a great movie, and even though I am dubious on the acting of Jamie Foxx, it will be interesting to see how well Mann does with the idea of making this a long-form music video.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

08:33 / 26.06.06

Are you suggesting that Vice or Mann is primarily substance over style? There's an argument for Vice, less so for Mann as Ali and the Insider shows. From what I've seen of the trailers I think that the film will be very, very different to the TV series, still image concious but with a lot more substance.

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:52 / 10.07.06

The trailer for this makes it look like it might be my guilty pleasure of the year: even more so than the Bad Boys films, this seems blatantly about a couple of cops who just fucking LOVE shooting people and blowing shit up, and just wear the badge because it's more convenient to have a license for that kind of stuff. In that respect the casting is perfect.

On the music front, I will be disappointed if there is not as much Jay-Z in the film (proportionally) as there was in the trailer...

Keith, like a scientist

14:35 / 10.07.06

Agreed, the trailer is pretty slick. Too bad they used the Linkin Park mashup version of that Jay-Z song, though...kind of made the whole thing seem slightly wonky when LP's part came in.

I'm hoping this is the successor to Heat in terms of high stakes crime capers and shootouts.

22:16 / 10.07.06

Pardon my ignorance re Linkin Park, but isn't that a Linkin Park song featuring JayZ? ie, it was their song that JayZ reproduced?

22:19 / 10.07.06

Ixnay. The song is a mash-up of the Jay-Z song "Encore" (taken from his 2003 album The Black Album) and the Linkin Park song "Numb" (taken from their 2003 album Meteora).

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

07:00 / 11.07.06

It's off Collision Course which was a joint LP/Jay-Z project and has a number of both their songs mixed together. I'm neither a Jay-Z or an LP fan but the lyrics to that song are absolutly perfect for the trailer and the subject matter of Miami Vice.

I think it's going to be much more of a crime drama with action than an action film per se.

17:49 / 11.07.06

I think it's going to be much more of a crime drama with action than an action film per se.

Hopefully. Anyone got a clue as to when this movie opens?

Plus, a bit on the threadrot side, what the next succesfull TV series from th 80's should be made into a film (maybe this deserves a thread on its own)? I'm still waiting for T.J. Hooker, Manimal, and Automan...

21:22 / 11.07.06

In terms of the blurring the boundaries between cop and criminal as well as the conflict involved in being undercover to my knowledge Vice was the first cop show to tackle these ideas. They way they did it may seem a little primitive now but I think they cleared the way for a lot of other crime dramas.

Totally. One of the most memorable storylines featured Crockett waking up alone with amnesia. Based on available evidence (his clothes, his gun, a large amount of cash present? the details are hazy) he naturally assumed he was some kind of drug dealer or hitman, and had no problem whatsoever with this. He quickly fell in with the wrong crowd and actually tried to assassinate Tubbs when directed to by his new employer. Said employer found out Crockett was a cop before Crockett did, leading to poor memory-addled Sonny being hunted by good guys and bad guys alike, with predictably violent results. Good fun, and at the time quite a daring story arc for a cop hero.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

07:14 / 12.07.06

I remember that story arc, sort of silly and cool at the same time. The trailer for the film suggests that much of it will be about the problems of being undercover: how much do you go along with the bad guys, identifying with them, befriending them, trying to remember who you are, the lure of the "game" etc. it's one of the reasons that the lyrics of Numb/Encore work so well in the trailer.

I think anyone going to see Vice expecting Bad Boys 3 will be very dissapointed whilst they may be about similar subjects I think they will be treated very differently. Not that I'm dissing Bad Boys 2 (though I really can't justify my liking of this film) it has a twist in it that I think Hitchcock would've struggled to come up with.

DM Miami Vice opens in Britain on August the 3rd, I don't know about the rest of the world.

Just out of interest are all the people enthusing about this film in this thread 30+ fans of the old series?

16:22 / 12.07.06

No, I'm young. Oh, and looking forward to this. That said I did find the opening of the Phil Collins' Pilot on No!Tube and thought it rocked like a stonewash.

The movie to be as Flyboy describes, please.

17:58 / 12.07.06

I find myself strangely enthused by the trailer.

I'm not a fan of Linkin Park, nor am I a fan of Jay-Z and although I did like their collaboration, it didn't move me enough to buy it - but, as has been said by several people, whoever was paid to make this trailer knows precisely what they are doing.

I'm mid-twenties, and I've never seen the original Miami Vice series - but I was aware of the concepts, and acutely aware of the Jan Hammer theme.

The main thing is that I trust Michael Mann as a director, since Heat. Collateral was also good, but not as good, in my humblest opinion.

However, I'd like to ask - am I right in thinking that this film will only work to it's best extent if it's played utterly seriously? No real in-jokes, attempts at random humour, that sort of thing? That's how it appears to me, and I'm only intrigued because of the... well... slightly camp nature of more recent remakes, but I could be wrong.

There are two things that strike me about the trailer on repeated viewing, also - one, the clicks of the guns in time with the music is well done, but to balance it, does anyone find Jamie Foxx saying the line "Taking it to the limit one more time" very flat? Again, this could equally just be me.

So, to sum up, enthused. I look forward to August 3rd.

18:32 / 12.07.06

Trips, imagine that trailer, but for an hour. Weekly.

I hope this film has synthesizers. Michael Mann should always work with cars, cities at night, and synthesizers.

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