The cocaine cowboys of the ‘80s are gone, but Miami’s Casablanca allure, the undercover cops and the attitudes of Michael Mann’s culturally influential television series have been enhanced by time in the feature film version of Miami Vice.
Ricardo Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) is urbane and dead smart. He lives with Bronx-born intel analyst, Trudy (Naomie Harris), as they work undercover transporting drug loads into South Florida to identify a group responsible for three murders.
Sonny Crockett (Colin Farrell) is charismatic and flirtatious until -while working undercover with the supplier of the South Florida group - he gets romantically entangled with Isabella (Gong Li), the Chinese-Cuban wife of an arms and drugs trafficker.
The best undercover identity is oneself with the volume turned up and restraint unplugged. The intensity of this case pushes Crockett and Tubbs out onto the edge where identity and fabrication become blurred, where cop and player become one - especially for Crockett in his romance with Isabella and for Tubbs in the provocation of an assault on those he loves.
Miami Vice liberates what is adult, dangerous and alluring about working deeply undercover… especially when Crockett and Tubbs go to where their badges don’t count.
- Miami and Beyond: Shooting on Location
- Miami Vice Undercover