What do you get when you put together two actors who are regarded as not only capable actors, but also Oscar-worthy talent? You get a boring movie that tries to bring procedural dialog to the big screen, instead of thrilling you or holding your attention.

The typical action summer blockbuster is something that deserves your ire, but there are loud, silly, overblown action movies that still manage to be fun and worth watching more than once. For purposes of review, I watched this twice. What a horrible mistake to make. On a second focused viewing of Miami Vice, I should have “gotten it” and seen what Michael Mann was going for when he turned the Don Johnson TV show into an action drama. I don’t think that owning this DVD would do anything to change my mind.

The story behind Miami Vice is that Sonny Crockett (a mustachioed Colin Ferrell) and Ricardo Tubbs (Ray Charles impersonator Jaime Foxx) have been working on a prostitution case, which gets them entangled in an FBI case gone awry. One of their informants has been ratted out, and his family is in as much danger as he is.

Since Crockett and Tubbs are not well known by the drug pushing scum the FBI wants to take down, the team is enlisted to go undercover to work inside the organization and do their best to bring them to justice. Crocket and Tubbs have to do their best to gain the trust of Jose Yero (John Ortiz), who is working for Montoya. Yero is the typical kill anything upper level thug who is always suspicious of any new element being brought into his playground. His big boss, played by Luis Tosar, is a man who has all his minions do the rough work for him. His assistant is Isabella, played by Gong Li; we’ll get to her later.

Barry Shabaka Henley (no wonder why his face is more familiar than his name) plays Crockett and Tubbs boss, Lt. Castillo. He’s not a screaming stereotypical movie *cop* He’s a bit quieter, but he speaks up when it’s called for. He’s not integral to the plot, but I do like Henley whenever he shows up in a movie.

Farrell’s character has his eyes on Isabella, the liaison to Montoya. As far as I know, Gong Li does not hail from a Spanish speaking country, and I have to admit that it is strange that she is an Asian woman working with this Latin drug organization. That’s a simple nitpick, and it’s not as if eyebrow raising casting hasn’t been done before; but Li feels somewhat out of place for me. Her performance is, well, not exactly inspiring, but nowhere near terrible. She is attractive. Come on, what else do you want me to say?

Foxx’ love interest/fellow police officer is played by Naomie Harris, who might play tough at times, but she’s hot when she and Foxx are involved in a steamy (but slightly corny) sex scene. In a scene that is probably considered the movie’s climax, Harris’ detective character gets directly involved. This is one of the few scenes I actually enjoyed, because there was tension and the characters had something invested in taking down the bad guys other than simply their duty. Why wasn’t there more down and dirty cop action in this movie?

I’m not someone who cries for blood, or has to have non-stop ridiculous action in a cop movie for me to enjoy it, but the drama here is dull. I got tired of staring at the profile of Jaimie Foxx and Colin Ferrel’s faces as they look mean and tough. You get no sense of how long these cops have been working together, or if they even really like one another. After decades of cop movies, we don’t need a movie like this, where we don’t really know enough about our heroes to care if they live or die. I congratulate Michael Mann and company for taking a TV show and going in a much separate direction. Unfortunately, this direction led to a dead end for me.

Bonus DVD features include “Miami & Beyond: Shooting on Location,” “Visualizing Miami Vice,” and “Behind the Scenes.” These are all behind the scenes features, but ‘Miami and Beyond’ focuses on set locations, ‘Visualizing Miami Vice’ focuses on film making in general and Behind the Scenes are self-explanatory. You also get a commentary track by director Michael Mann.

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age