Miami Vice is a 2006 crime action film produced, written, and directed by Michael Mann. It is an adaptation of the 1980s television series of the same name, which Mann produced. It stars Colin Farrell as James "Sonny" Crockett and Jamie Foxx as Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs, MDSO detectives who go undercover to fight drug trafficking operations. The cast also features Gong Li, Naomie Harris, Justin Theroux, Ciarán Hinds, and Barry Shabaka Henley.
Foxx brought up the idea of a Miami Vice film to Mann during a party for Ali. This led Mann to revisit the series. Like Collateral, which also starred Foxx, most of the film was shot with the Thomson Viper Filmstream Camera, while Super 35 was used for high-speed and underwater shots.
Miami Vice premiered in Los Angeles on July 20, 2006. It was released in North America on July 28, 2006, by Universal Pictures. It grossed $164.2 million worldwide on a reported $135–150 million budget. The film received polarized reviews, with praise for Mann's directing and visual style but criticism for the serious storyline. In subsequent years, its reputation among critics and filmmakers has grown, with critic Steven Hyden writing in 2016 that the film had become a cult favorite.
Plot While working an undercover prostitute sting operation in a nightclub to arrest a pimp named Neptune, Miami-Dade Police detectives James "Sonny" Crockett and Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs receive a frantic phone call from their former informant Alonzo Stevens. He reveals that he is leaving town, and, believing his wife Leonetta to be in immediate danger, asks Rico to check on her. Crockett learns that Stevens was working as an informant for the FBI but has been compromised.
Crockett and Tubbs quickly contact the FBI Special Agent in Charge John Fujima and warn him about Stevens' safety. Tracking down Stevens through a vehicle transponder and aerial surveillance, Crockett and Tubbs stop him along I-95. Stevens reveals that a Colombian cartel had become aware that Russian FSB operatives (now dead) were working undercover with the FBI, and had threatened to murder Leonetta via a C-4 necklace bomb if he did not confess. Rico, learning of Leonetta's death by telephone call, tells Alonzo that he does not have to go home. Hearing this, the grief-stricken Stevens commits suicide by walking in front of an oncoming semi-truck.
En route to the murder scene, Sonny and Rico receive a call from Lt. Martin Castillo and are instructed to meet him downtown, where they are introduced to Fujima, head of the Florida Joint Inter-Agency Task Force between the FBI, the DEA, and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. Crockett and Tubbs berate Fujima for the errors committed and ask why the MDPD was not involved. Fujima reveals that the Colombian group, a wing of the A.U.C., is highly sophisticated and run by José Yero, initially thought to be the cartel's leader. Fujima enlists Crockett and Tubbs, making them Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force deputies, to lead a deep undercover operation. They continue the investigation by looking into go-fast boats coming from the Caribbean, delivering loads of narcotics from the Colombians. They then coerce their Miami informant Nicholas into setting up a meet-and-greet with the cartel.
Posing as highly skilled drug smugglers, Sonny and Rico offer their services to Yero, the cartel's security and intelligence man. After a tense meeting, they pass screening and are introduced to Arcángel de Jesús Montoya, transnational drug trafficking kingpin. During their investigation, Crockett and Tubbs learn that the cartel is using the Aryan Brotherhood to distribute drugs and have supplied them with state-of-the-art weaponry, which they used to kill the Russian undercovers. Meanwhile, Crockett tries to gather further evidence from Montoya's financial adviser and lover, Isabella, but ends up starting a secret romance with her while on a trip by speedboat to Cuba. At a club, Yero observes the two dancing closely. Afterward, Crockett and Isabella discuss the possibility of running away together. Tubbs begins to fear for the team's safety due to Crockett's fling. Those fears are realized when Trudy, the unit's intelligence agent and Rico's girlfriend, is kidnapped by the Aryan Brotherhood on Yero's order, who never trusted Crockett and Tubbs. The Aryan Brotherhood demand that Crockett and Tubbs deliver the cartel's load directly to them. With Lt. Castillo's help and clues given by Trudy, the unit triangulates Trudy's location to a mobile home in a trailer park near an airport. The team rescue Trudy, but she is critically injured when Yero remotely detonates a bomb that destroys the home. Soon afterward, Yero reveals Isabella's betrayal to Montoya and captures her.
Crockett, Tubbs, and their team face off against Yero, his men, and the Aryan Brotherhood in a shipyard at the port of Miami. During the firefight, Crockett calls in backup. When Isabella sees his police shield and radio, she realizes that he is a cop. Betrayed, Isabella wrestles with Crockett until he subdues her. Tubbs guns down Yero as he attempts to shoot his way to safety. After the gunfight, Crockett takes Isabella to a police safehouse and insists she will have to leave without him. Isabella tells him "time is luck", holding out hope their affair can continue, but he tells her that "luck ran out". Crockett arranges for Isabella to leave the country and return home to Cuba, thus avoiding arrest. Tubbs keeps watch on Trudy in the hospital as she begins to awaken from her coma.
Cast
Cast from the AFI Catalog of Feature Films.
Production Development Jamie Foxx brought up the idea of a Miami Vice film to Michael Mann during a party for Ali. This led Mann to revisit the series he helped create.
Like Collateral, which also starred Foxx, most of the film was shot with the Thomson Viper FilmStream Camera, while Super 35 was used for high-speed and underwater shots. Cinematographer Dion Beebe was also Collateral cinematographer.
The suits that Jamie Foxx wore in the film were designed by noted fashion designer Ozwald Boateng. He had worked with Foxx in the past and caught Mann's eye, who then asked him to work on the film. Michael Kaplan was responsible for the costume design overall.
Filming The film was shot on location in the Caribbean, Uruguay, Paraguay (Ciudad del Este), and South Florida. Uruguay locations included the seaside resort Atlántida standing in for Havana, the old building of the Carrasco International Airport, and the Rambla waterfront avenue and the Old City in Montevideo. The production was characterized as being troubled, marked by a series of delays and conflicts. Seven days of filming were lost to hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. The delays led to a budget of what some insiders claimed to be over $150 million, though Universal Pictures says it cost $135 million. Several crew members criticized Mann's decisions during production, which featured sudden script changes, filming in unsafe weather conditions, and choosing locations that "even the police avoid, drafting gang members to work as security". Mann wanted the film to be as realistic as possible and took Farrell along on what were thought to be real drug busts undertaken by FBI drug squads, though these were later found to have been staged.See Miami Vice DVD featurette
Foxx was also characterized as unpleasant to work with. He had won an Academy Award for his performance in Ray after signing onto the film, and subsequently called for upgrades in his salary and other compensation. He demanded top billing in the film's credits and was also said to have complained that he was paid less than Farrell; Foxx's salary was raised considerably and Farrell's was cut slightly to address this. Foxx also refused to fly commercially, successfully lobbying Universal to hire a private jet for him. He also objected to filming scenes shot on boats or planes. Eventually, after gunshots were fired on set in the Dominican Republic on October 24, 2005, Foxx left the country and returned to the United States. This forced the production to abandon the script's intended ending, slated to be shot in Paraguay, and revert to a previously discarded one that Mann had written, which was set in Miami. One crew member later opined that the Miami-based ending was the dramatically inferior of the two, though Mann said that he came to prefer it.
Sal Magluta, the drug trafficker identified by Tubbs as running go-fast boats in the film's opening scenes, is in fact one of Miami's real-life reputed "Cocaine Cowboys" and is currently serving a life sentence for money laundering.
The first teaser trailer to appear for the film featured the Linkin Park and Jay-Z song "Numb/Encore". This trailer was attached to the release of King Kong in theaters. For several months before its release, the official web site hosted the first teaser trailer for download as a High-Definition WMV file.
Music Mann took efforts to distance the film from the television series; this extended to his choices for music, as he declined to use the show's theme song and did not ask series composer Jan Hammer to work on the film's score. Hammer said, "I was completely surprised they didn't have a remake of [the theme]. I think it's a matter of being too cool for school." The musical score was composed by John Murphy, with additional cues by Klaus Badelt, Mark Batson and Tim Motzer.
Phil Collins' famous hit "In the Air Tonight", which was featured in the television series' pilot episode, is featured in the original film as a cover done by Miami-based rock band Nonpoint during the closing credits and on the soundtrack. Mann's "Director's Edit" released on DVD places the song in the film just prior to the climactic gun battle as suggested by members of the production crew during post-production.
Nonpoint – "In the Air Tonight" Moby featuring Patti LaBelle – "One of These Mornings" Mogwai – "We're No Here" Nina Simone – "Sinnerman (Felix da Housecat's Heavenly House Mix)" Mogwai – "Auto Rock" Manzanita – "Arranca" India.Arie – "Ready for Love" Goldfrapp – "Strict Machine" Emilio Estefan – "Pennies in My Pocket" King Britt – "New World in My View" Blue Foundation – "Sweep" Moby – "Anthem" Freaky Chakra – "Blacklight Fantasy" John Murphy – "Mercado Nuevo" John Murphy – "Who Are You" King Britt & Tim Motzer – "Ramblas" Klaus Badelt & Mark Batson – "A-500"
The RZA was supposed to contribute to the film's score but dropped out for unknown reasons. Atlanta based producers Organized Noize were brought in to take RZA's place instead.
The music included on the soundtrack has several differences from what was featured in the film: Of the first four songs featured in the film's first sequence in The Mansion nightclub, three are on the soundtrack and Nina Simone's "Sinnerman" is the only song to be featured in its original form. Jay-Z and Linkin Park's "Numb/Encore" is not found on the soundtrack despite being featured in both of the film's trailers and being the first song in the film. Furthermore, the version of Goldfrapp's "Strict Machine" is the We Are Glitter remix of the song, and both it and Freaky Chakra's "Blacklight Fantasy" are edits from Sasha's mix album Fundacion NYC. Neither version appears on the soundtrack. Clips of two Audioslave songs, "Wide Awake" and "Shape of Things to Come", are featured in the film, but the songs do not appear on the soundtrack. The version of Moby's "Anthem" on the soundtrack does not appear in the film. Instead, prominent placement is given to Moby's "Cinematic Version" of the song. King Britt's "New World in My View" is featured in the film but is missing the spoken-word lyrics of Sister Gertrude. The song plays instrumentally in the background at one point in the film.
Reception Box office