Mami Vice
Rated-R
____
By Todd Karella
July 28, 2006
~Who knew that Miami was that dull~
  The 1980’s TV show that this film was based on is one of the iconoclastic shows of all time.  Billed as an MTV cop show Don Johnson and Phillip Michael Thomas were the hottest duo on television.  Everyone wanted to be as cool as they were, drive the most expensive cars like they did and hook up with the most beautiful women while listening to the hottest music of the time.
   Unfortunately, what made the TV show great also made the new film terrible. The latest version about Sonny Crockett (Colin Farrell) and
Ricardo Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) had nothing of what made its predecessor such a significant part of American culture. Instead, the soundtrack was bad, the dialogue hideous and the film was shot in a bland grayish color.
   The plot also meandered aimlessly while Farrell showed exactly how terrible of an actor he truly is. Not only was there no emotion in any of his dialogue, but his attempt at speaking Americanized English came across as some unintelligible grunting as he looked completely out of place as if somebody was feeding him his lines and stage directions as he went along.
   Crockett and Tubbs are in a club about to make a bust on a slave-trade ring when Crockett gets a frantic call from a former informant telling them that he’s sold out the feds but didn’t bring their name into it.
  Immediately dropping their current case, the two detectives take off in their vehicle and find their informant on the freeway racing home to find his wife.
The white supremacist group he had been spying on found out he was working for the feds and kidnapped his wife in order to get information out of him. It’s not explained why they just didn’t kill him after they got the information since they killed his wife anyways.
   Since the only agency not involved in this new case is the Miami police, they now need to infiltrate the white supremacist group and find out who and where the inside leak is coming from.  After about two minutes of detective work and hijacking the next drug shipment from the drug runners and blowing up their boats they immediately become the new drug runners for the Columbian drug lord.
  Even if you can accept their ease of infiltration, you’ve got to wonder about the drug lord’s intelligence. Not only does he hire two new guys on the spot, but a couple days later the new runners happen to stumble upon his stolen shipment and give it back to him.
   But all of these plot points take about 15 minutes of the film, while the next hour Crockett spends seducing Isabella (Gong Li) who is his new boss’ girlfriend. While this brings back the memories of what might happen in the original series, it was so long that it brought the film to a screeching halt.
   Finally, there is some action in the film as the two must rescue Tubbs’ girlfriend, Trudy (Naomie Harris), from the white supremacists.  Just as they did at the beginning of the film, the entire plot of finding the leak is completely dropped and now they focus on another side plot.
  The coolest scenes are when Tubbs’ just goes off and plugs a few bad guys even after they’re wounded, but you can’t help but wonder why he brought his girlfriend around a group of psychopaths who are known for killing people’s family members.
   Overall, the film is a big letdown and a complete waste of your $10. It’s not even worth a rental. If you really need to see it, wait until it comes out on cable.  Of course, if you have trouble sleeping you may want to get a copy since it’s bound to put even the most chronic insomniac to sleep.