Miami Vice the Motion Picture, Pal!

With all the movies based on TV shows, I knew it would only be a matter of time before Miami Vice was next. Seems like yesterday when I thought this. I wondered how it would be. Would it be a parody along the lines of The Brady Bunch (which was actually clever enough)? After all, Vice's trend-setting synthesis of rock music, surreal visuals and cool clothes are surely ripe for parody.

Then last year, I read on a Miami Vice fan club at Yahoo that the show was indeed going to be a movie. It was to be directed by Michael Mann, the executive producer of the small-screen crime drama. This was something of a relief for me. He knows what he's doing, and he understands that MV wouldn't be ultramodern all over again by rehashing every aspect of his two-decades-old television program. It's now 2006, and the '80s are over and done. So Michael Mann has refitted MV as a 21st Century major motion picture.

Once again, detectives James “Sonny” Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs go undercover to nail a drug kingpin. An FBI leak prompts a Fed to recruit them from their South Florida vice squad. As in the TV show, they have to live a lie to fight the war on drugs. This means that anyone they get involved with in the course of their operation could get hurt, or could hurt them. Does that stop Crockett from mixing business with pleasure? See for yourself. The object of his desire is played, stone-faced, by Gong Li, whose thick accent has put off many moviegoers.

Some of the situations remind fans of the classic Miami Vice episode “Smuggler's Blues,” which is understandable enough. From time to time, it reminded me of that episode. I think some are a bit harsh in thinking the entire film ripped it off, even when I half-expected someone to try to rob Sonny and Rico when they touched down back in Florida.