Haggisboy
04-08-2006, 10:43 AM
I think Michael Mann is one of the great directors working in Hollywood today. However, after watching his big screen version of Miami Vice, I found myself wishing he’d move beyond his fixation with urban crime and explore other themes, of which he has shown himself masterfully capable in the past.
This is not to say Miami Vice is a bad movie. It isn’t. But its equally not a great one. Rather, it’s merely an entertaining, artfully done popcorn flick that treads over the same ground as previous Mann offerings such as Manhunter, Heat and Collateral.
Thematically the movie falls squarely in the middle between Heat and Collateral, conveying a better story than Heat, but not as tightly focused and driven as Collateral. Both Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx turn in decent performances as detectives Crockett and Tubbs in a quest to bust some South American drug lords, but the movie finds itself meandering at times, giving the viewer the sense that Mann is stretching the telling of a thin story beyond its required time.
Right from the beginning, Mann plunks the viewer down in the midst of a drug bust gone amok, leaving the audience scratching heads trying to get a grip on who’s who and what’s what. Eventually, as the silt settles, things start to become clear, however the introduction of a romantic sub-plot between Crockett and a high ranking female drug kingpin causes the movie to bog down just as its garnering steam.
Like Heat, Vice culminates in a lengthy Peckinpah-esque gun battle that serves to tie the film’s various sub-plots together, however in doing so Mann is basically telling the audience that his overstretched story has been pushed to its max and its time to reign it all in with some good old fashioned ultra violence. Granted there’s nothing wrong with that, but with Mann I can’t help wish for more.
While his career history shows a director/screenwriter drawn to the drama of urban street crime, it’s his work outside this mold that has seen him distinguish himself as one of the great directors working today.
His 1992 epic retelling of James Fennimore Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans is a truly spectacular piece of filmmaking. Driven, focused, beautifully scored and photographed with the full force of an incredible cast of characters, the movie is one of my all time personal favorites; one which I hold as among the very best ever made.
Similarly, the 1999 film The Insider, which told the story of a lone whistle-blower’s David like challenge to big corporate tobacco’s Goliath was the complete antithesis of the action movie, but intensely riveting nonetheless.
Mann’s ability to wow the viewer with the impressive sweep of historical grandeur, or the tightly wound, dialogue driven drama of a court-case illustrates his talent with dealing with material that is generally more substance than style. However his urban crime dramas have, for the most part, been the direct opposite – triumphs of style over substance.
Its too bad, really, because Hollywood needs more of the former, and not the latter.
This is not to say Miami Vice is a bad movie. It isn’t. But its equally not a great one. Rather, it’s merely an entertaining, artfully done popcorn flick that treads over the same ground as previous Mann offerings such as Manhunter, Heat and Collateral.
Thematically the movie falls squarely in the middle between Heat and Collateral, conveying a better story than Heat, but not as tightly focused and driven as Collateral. Both Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx turn in decent performances as detectives Crockett and Tubbs in a quest to bust some South American drug lords, but the movie finds itself meandering at times, giving the viewer the sense that Mann is stretching the telling of a thin story beyond its required time.
Right from the beginning, Mann plunks the viewer down in the midst of a drug bust gone amok, leaving the audience scratching heads trying to get a grip on who’s who and what’s what. Eventually, as the silt settles, things start to become clear, however the introduction of a romantic sub-plot between Crockett and a high ranking female drug kingpin causes the movie to bog down just as its garnering steam.
Like Heat, Vice culminates in a lengthy Peckinpah-esque gun battle that serves to tie the film’s various sub-plots together, however in doing so Mann is basically telling the audience that his overstretched story has been pushed to its max and its time to reign it all in with some good old fashioned ultra violence. Granted there’s nothing wrong with that, but with Mann I can’t help wish for more.
While his career history shows a director/screenwriter drawn to the drama of urban street crime, it’s his work outside this mold that has seen him distinguish himself as one of the great directors working today.
His 1992 epic retelling of James Fennimore Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans is a truly spectacular piece of filmmaking. Driven, focused, beautifully scored and photographed with the full force of an incredible cast of characters, the movie is one of my all time personal favorites; one which I hold as among the very best ever made.
Similarly, the 1999 film The Insider, which told the story of a lone whistle-blower’s David like challenge to big corporate tobacco’s Goliath was the complete antithesis of the action movie, but intensely riveting nonetheless.
Mann’s ability to wow the viewer with the impressive sweep of historical grandeur, or the tightly wound, dialogue driven drama of a court-case illustrates his talent with dealing with material that is generally more substance than style. However his urban crime dramas have, for the most part, been the direct opposite – triumphs of style over substance.
Its too bad, really, because Hollywood needs more of the former, and not the latter.