Miami Vice

Michael Mann is back in another action vehicle with two hot stars, continuing his experiment with digital cinematography he started with "Collateral." The look is more refined, but I found the pacing to be monotonous, and the story and the characters are too cool for their own good. The picture never invites the audience to its own world, the characters care less about making a connection.

There's surprisingly less action than it implies, although Michael Mann uses guns very effectively. When the shit goes down, the whole house goes down.

Although I love Gong Li as an actress, she doesn't really belong in this flick, with her forced English and much-more forced romance with Colin Farrell.

There were some news of troubled production and the picture getting longer and longer, and I could see why. Even in assured hands of Mr. Mann's direction, the story and the characters never took its flight off from the original TV premise. Miami Vice may have been a gimmick license to wrap an action flick Michael Mann may have wanted to make, but I don't think he really got inspired beyond a buddy-cop flick in drug war premise.