Summary: After a tragic security breach in the Joint Inter-Agency Task Force (JIATF), the FBI ask for help from the Miami authorities, who are not part of the compromised group. This assignment goes to Detectives James 'Sonny' Crockett and Ricardo 'Rico' Tubbs.
Ricardo Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) is urbane and dead smart. He lives with Bronx-born Intel analyst Trudy (Naomie Harris), as they work undercover transporting drug loads into South Florida to identify a group responsible for three murders. Sonny Crockett (Colin Farrell) [to the untrained eye, his presentation may seem unorthodox, but procedurally, he is sound] is charismatic and flirtatious until - while undercover working with the supplier of the South Florida group - he gets romantically entangled with Isabella (Gong Li), the Chinese-Cuban wife of an arms and drugs trafficker.
Going undercover as offshore boat racers and outlaw smugglers Sonny Burnett and Rico Cooper, they take on the narcotrafficking network of the mysterious Archangel de Jesus Montoya-Londono and his Cuban Chinese banker Isabella. The intensity of the case pushes Crockett and Tubbs out onto the edge where identity and fabrication become blurred, where cop and player become one - especially when Crockett falls for Isabella, and when there is an assault on Tubbs's loved ones.
The best undercover identity is oneself with the volume turned up and restraint unplugged.
Director: Michael Mann
Release Date (U.S.): July 28, 2006
Running Time: 128-146* min.
*Not finalized at this time. One test screening for studio execs clocked in at 146 minutes while the most recent final cut was 128 minutes.
.....
Finally, an adult movie
for adults.
Contray to popular belief, this is not another lame remake of an old TV show. This is another entry in Michael Mann's series of gritty crime dramas in the similar vein of "Heat" and "Collateral" where what makes both the both the good and bad guys tick is just as important as the terrible things they do to each other and the ones they love in the pursuit of their own personal codes of justice, no matter what side of the law they fall on.
This film shares the name of the NBC TV series starring Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas which ran from 1984 to 1989... But this is where the similarities end as Mann wanted to make the 2006 version of Miami Vice more like a modern-day "French Connection" than a campy TV-series remake.
However, while the TV series was/is often more known for the pastel wardrobe of its main star (Johson) and being a prime example of the decadent 1980s, the show itself was one of the most cutting-edge shows as far as combing chart-topping hits of the day with impressive visuals every week to create an almost surreal world where it seemed the show was one giant music video with a little dialogue thrown in for good measure.
Here is a scene which clearly demonstrates how adhead of its time Miami Vice (the series) was when it was on the air over 20 years ago:
Phil Collins - In the Air Tonight from Pilot Episode
...And...
Russ Ballard - Voices
It is a flashback/montage video as Crockett and Tubbs are on their way to the Bahammas to nab the head of a vicious drug cartel who has fled U.S. extradition. The scene is considered the quintessential Miami Vice scene from all five seasons due to the inclusion of the cigarrette boat and the music video-style editing.