To set the scene here, the Universal logo sequence goes quiet. You hear Linkin Park and Jay-Z’s “Numb” blasting from the nightclub speakers as a woman is dancing and a bunch of club patrons are having a grand ol’ time. Unbeknownst to them, a bunch of Miami-Dade cops, led by Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs, are in a sting operation on a pimp waiting to arrest him like predators on the prowl. You expect something grand in this opening scene, like Trinity running from the agents in The Matrix (1999) or Darth Vader and his stormtroopers invading a diplomatic ship in the first Star Wars (1977). Instead, Miami Vice (2006) puts you right into the headspace of Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx’s characters as they find out that their former informant’s cover was blown and the man’s family was killed.
Miami Vice, based on a show from the 80s of the same name, follows Crockett and Tubbs as they go undercover to take down a drug kingpin. You would think it’s a remake of a TV show made by someone not familiar with the source material, but Michael Mann was the executive producer of the OG series and even directed the pilot. In a way, he redefines his own work set in the modern day and is also one of the directors who paved the way for the transition from analog to digital filmmaking.
He began using digital cameras when making both The Insider (1999) and Ali (2001) because he knew that he had to adapt during the 2000s. He wanted to test out the early forms of digital technology with Panavision cameras that came with Kodak stock, which was on its way to bankruptcy, including the Thompson Viper. Miami Vice has light sources that are realistically bright, night scenes that you can clearly see when it’s dark, handheld camera movements that don’t feel disorienting, and shadows that feel noisy, which give off a documentary-like feeling, like you’re watching actual Vice cops doing their job. You’re left feeling like a fly on the wall, watching Sonny and Ricardo do their thing.
When shooting on The Thompson, cinematographer Dion Beebe shot the movie with its unique sensor when shooting the night scenes, giving off a depth-of-field. Rather than using typical studio backlighting to create visual effects of tropical thunderstorms, the crew relied on real-world environments, such as actually shooting during a storm and shooting at night. The beauty of Miami Vice is a negative space with the film’s extreme wide shots showing off expensive seascapes of the Pacific Ocean connecting Cuba and Florida, and the Miami skyline.
Mann is a director whom I wholeheartedly admire. His movies are a cinematic masterclass involving his male characters presenting a form of sensitive masculinity, your work becoming an obsession, capturing the atmosphere of a metropolitan city, whether it’s Chicago, Miami, or Los Angeles, and even the near-accuracy of crafting “shoot-em-up” action sequences. There’s a certain way Mann directs action, and it’s with immaculate precision and near-silence to enhance the tension of the bloodbath that’s about to be unleashed.
There’s a standout sequence in the movie where the Miami Vice team infiltrates the neo-nazi trailer park where their colleague, Trudy, is being held. Then you have the one guy who had the bomb strapped to Trudy and the detonator in his hand, who then gets shot in the head after Detective Gina Calabrese (Elizabeth Rodriguez) says this line, “What will happen is I will put a round at twenty-seven hundred feet per second into the medulla at the base of your brain. And you will be dead from the neck down before your body knows it. Your finger won’t even twitch. Only you get dead. So tell me, sport, do you believe that?” And then BAM, she pulls the trigger.
Mann also implements doomed romance in his movies, whether it’s Neil McCauley and Eady in Heat (1995), John Dillinger and Billie Frechette in Public Enemies (2009), or Nicolas Hathaway and Chen Lien in Blackhat (2015). In the case of Miami Vice, Crockett and Isabelle’s (the drug lord’s advisor/lover) romance is sadly short-lived, and also Tubbs and Trudy. The final line, “Luck ran out, it wasn’t built to last,” is said by Crockett as Isabelle goes on a boat that takes her to safety, where she can start a new life, and Sonny goes back to his job. Mann’s movies are beautifully tragic and make a point that the characters’ choices have dire consequences. Their obsession with committing a crime, or with stopping a crime, leads to their downfall, or doomed romances as a form of cosmic connection between two human beings, rooted in longing and yearning.
I think we, as human beings, feel desensitized when it comes to romance in movies, we wanna have two characters in a relationship have a happy ending, but when a crime thriller involves a main character having a love interest, it never seems to end well for either of them. Like I’ve said, all of Mann’s movies have doomed romances. I find his cynicism about romance to be the most interesting factor in his oeuvre because he wants to be realistic about the fact that sometimes love is never meant to last when criminal activities or career-ending scandals are involved.
Mann’s portrayal of damaged masculinity is heightened in all of his projects, with most of Mann’s protagonists pointing their guns at the screen as they prepare to pull the trigger. The main actors of Michael’s movies, Tom Cruise in Collateral (2004), Farrell and Foxx in Miami Vice, Chris Hemsworth in Blackhat, James Caan in Thief (1981), and Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in Heat, all radiate macho performances in which their intimidating but calm composure takes up most of the screen. No need for these actors to scream monologues for an Oscar nomination, their body movements and what we can guess what they’re thinking truly say it all.
Miami Vice was not well-received by critics or moviegoers, but has since gained a cult following and is revered as a crime thriller masterpiece. Like the original show being defined as a template of 80s pop culture, the 2006 movie is now defined as a template of 2000s action cinema and the digital age. Mann took the auteur avant-garde vibes from Wong Kar-Wai’s Fallen Angels (1995) and implemented a dreamlike crime noir style in a studio picture. It truly is a hypnotic film to get yourself lost in, only if you let it. Like the line from Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, “try not to understand it, feel it.”
There is, in fact, a reason why Mann is a niche director amongst the film community, or at least post-Miami Vice. He’s a director who has captured organic crime thriller/character study sophistication throughout his films, but has also made compelling character studies on notable figures in history, 20 years apart. The films were Ferrari (2023) about the downfall of Enzo Ferrari, and Ali, the story of Muhammad Ali, one of the greatest athletes to ever live. Mann’s filmography is a form of his own “style”, characterized by moody, neon-lit aesthetics, meticulous action scenes with realistically loud gunshots, and poetic visuals of highway traffic, open oceans, and metropolitan skylines. that you may or may not vibe with, and that’s ok. You’re left with being on the fast boat to Cuba with no destination in sight, and maybe that’s a beautiful thing.
Mainly, why I gravitate towards Mann’s films is because they have a form of aura that is currently being replicated. Heat is one of the most influential films of all time because it popularized the heist genre, and there are a few films that have been replicated, like Crime 101 (2026) and The Town (2010). Thief was also influential in the sense that there are crime thrillers replicated to be about protagonists quitting their criminal ways to settle down, risking the lives of the people they care about. Miami Vice is a “dudes rock” movie. There are other earlier and exceptional movies about guys being dudes, like Jaws (1975), but Miami Vice is an action thriller where Sonny and Tubbs look cool while doing their jobs, and their seasoned camaraderie radiates on the screen.
When you get down to it, Miami Vice is just a cool movie, and the public wasn’t really ready for that.
Article Courtesy of Santiago Brion
Feature Image Credit to Universal Pictures