Miami Vice

When I heard that they were making this movie, I cringed. Look at Starsky & Hutch, Dukes of Hazzard, and so on.

Say what you want about the fashion-sense of the 80's, the original Vice had stories that were dark, intense, and rarely had any cheesy happy endings.

When I saw the casting for this movie, that was a start. It's not like they cast Adam Sandler as Crockett and (insert Wayans brother here) as Tubbs. That would have thrown the movie on the list of "never see" for me. When I heard that Michael Mann was in charge, I started feeling even better about it. Mann, if you'll recall, was also in charge of the TV show.

I hit the theater a little early for the 10:20 showing. As I am watching people file out of the theater, the mood seemed fine. No gut-busting laughter, etc.

In a nutshell, this movies was excellent. Dark and intense from the beginning until the end. Colin Farrell had a brief bout with another accent early in the film, but was very solid in the movie. Jamie Fox was also awesome in his performance. That, and there were no pastels, or sock-less loafers. I am not sure what kind of Ferrari was used, but it looked like the F430. I suppose I could do some research on it, but that would require some effort.

This was not a campy spin-off of a TV show that makes you wonder why Hollywood is not the victim of relentless air-bombing. This was a well thought out story that paid homage to a series that was ground breaking in its serious tone/approach to counter the typical buddy cop crap that still persists in movies today.

See it.