Review of Miami Vice (2006) by Kimk. — 29 Jul 2006

One star for Naomie Harris, who had the guts to demand a body double for her preposterously unnecessary nude scenes; another star for one brief second in a nightclub when Ms. Harris's character Trudy Joplin and Elizabeth Rodriguez's Gina Calabrese exchange the sort of knowing, connected, smart glance that the guys try-- and fail-- to exchange for the entire film.

Not that it's easy to see expressions on anyone's faces in this sea of mud. When you're shooting a post-apocalyptic zombie flick like "28 Days Later" on a zero budget, digital video is fine.

It is not fine when your budget, oh Mr. Michael Mann, is supposedly $150 million. "Miami Vice" is the worst kind of movie: it has absolutely nothing engaging about it. It's as though they took a film-- any film-- and squeezed all the life and humor and intrigue and excitement out of it.

There's nothing here but a cold, bitter, muddily shot shell of a film. Colin Farrell and Jamie Fox have nothing in the way of chemistry; they have nothing but amazingly bad haircuts. The highly touted (how can you spot the boy review writers in this picture?) sex scenes are pointless and perfunctory.

Intelligible, intelligent dialogue-- anywhere?-- nope. Characters we can give a rat's patootie about? Are you kidding? Mr. Farrell and Miss Harris in life-or-death rasslin' matches with their adopted accents.

Ooh, yeah-- and it ain't pretty. Come to think of it, none of "Miami Vice" is pretty. Except for the clouds. And I can see those for free. A bitter, bad-spirited, unrewarding, and unentertaining film.

Stay home and watch "Heat" instead.