There aren’t that many Michael Mann films (barely a dozen released over the course of 43 years) and many of them carry some sort of asterisk as popular entertainment, whether it has to do with an earlier cinematic take on Hannibal Lecter before He Silence of inocents defined it (Manhunter), becoming one of the lowest-grossing films of Will Smith’s era as a top movie star (Ali), by not winning any of the Oscar categories in which it was nominated (The inside), or just drop really hard (Black hat). Perhaps that exacerbates a feeling among Mann’s die-hard acolytes that they should pick one of his less universally beloved films to champion alongside classics like Heat and The Last of the MohicansIn this peculiar contest for unpopularity, Miami Vice He may be the final winner.
In the real world, Miami Vice It was the first of several high-profile flops for Mann, interrupted only by the optimism of Depp and Bale. Public Enemiesand especially notable because a big-budget, all-star version of the popular TV show (which Mann produced) seemed an easier sell than Mann’s later films like Black hat and FerrariHowever, in certain corners of the Internet, Miami Vice It’s a quotable, GIF-friendly classic with a great soundtrack, like The best gun is for the normal people, this taciturn and digitally-brilliant team formed by Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx is for those who frequent the representation houses.
There was a recent foray between those two worlds, when a film writer and action movie enthusiast with a decent following on social media… aware about showing his favorite movie to his girlfriend, at her request. The movie in question was Miami ViceAnd boy did a Guggenheim curator do it with her own followers on social media. Take exception to that For some reason, something about the love of this movie is emblematic of straight male bad taste. She was criticized for, among other reasons, taking aim (with nothing more than casual anger, but still) at a stranger who does not, in fact, identify as straight, and wasn’t exactly displaying any particular aggression by posting her excitement about sharing her favorite movie with a loved one. She then doubled down, or tripled down, or tweeted through it, or whatever you call it when someone says they have nothing to apologize for and that they were within their rights to say what they said (over and over again). Which, of course, this person was doing, just as the original author of the post was within their rights to say that she was being some kind of jerk for documenting an enjoyable moment in their relationship.
Why was it so important for her to insist over and over again that no, there is actually absolutely nothing wrong with saying you like him? Miami Vice It means you have straight/male/bad taste remains a mystery. It’s always embarrassing to recap something that “happened” on Film Twitter, or any other subsection of Twitter. But it’s pretty interesting that this particular online controversy has reverberated into the real world, in the sense that Miami Vice is playing this weekend in New York and Los Angeles. It can also be watched on Netflix for residents of other cities who can’t plan their vacations around the screening of a 2006 flop.
This is the kind of strange afterlife that Mann’s films enjoy: sprawling, passionate, probably not especially profitable. It would be naive to assume that there isn’t something of a stereotype about Mann’s biggest fans: that they are guys who receive his work as some kind of spiritually elevated dad movies with impeccable vibes, as if there were a vibrant nightclub where you could also Stand at the back of the room. Watching the last 40 minutes of a well-known action movie while nodding in weak but perceptible approval. I know this stereotype well, because I am a straight man and I remember my then girlfriend, now wife, explaining to me halfway through the movie Heat that he would need a break during which I would get him some chocolate.
But despite his last name, Mann is not a gender essentialist filmmaker; many women and queer people love his vision of masculinity, and even those who don’t are not being held hostage. (My wife saw Heat with me because we’ve always shown each other movies we like.) In fact, my Mann fan credentials as a straight man have never been enough to get me into Miami ViceMy personal atypical case of Mann is Public Enemies With a side of Black hat; Miami Vice has always lived with The keep At the bottom of my ranking.
But hey, it’s on Netflix, so I gave it a go. Miami Vice Another shot. It’s still an unusual use of Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx, who play undercover cops trying to dismantle a drug ring, stripped of their Irish musicality and gregarious sense of humor, respectively. It’s also a beautiful, oddly romantic film, where the two lead couples — Crockett (Farrell) is paired with criminal finance consultant Isabella (Gong Li) while Tubbs (Foxx) is already paired with fellow cop Trudy (Naomie Harris) — constantly shower together. A not inconsiderable portion of the film consists of shots that place Crockett and Isabella in embraces that seem driven more by magnetism than the demands of the case. HeatWomen must react to the destruction caused to the lives of police officers and criminals; Public EnemiesJohn Dillinger has a fleeting romance at the center of his hectic criminal life. The men and women of Miami Vice They are more immersed in it, which makes everything related to their relationships more dangerous.
As a crime thriller, it is perhaps less effective. The crime films Mann made before Miami Vice are, by turns, epically detailed (Heat) and ruthlessly simplified (Collateral). Public EnemiesHis next film is rich in detail and deliberately low in exposition, abstracting its procedural elements much as digital cinematography abstracts familiar period settings. Miami Vice feels caught between these approaches: a bigger picture that Collaterala smaller one than Heat, not as experimental as Public Enemiesand less personality-driven than any of them. Many film fans love pithy, quotable dialogue, but there’s something canned about Jamie Foxx flatly intoning that “they’ll push it to the limit one more time.” It doesn’t exactly sound like Pacino slamming his hand on the table shouting “GIVE ME ALL YOU GOT!” At the same time, there are some classic Mann lines here — “You can’t negotiate with gravity,” for example, and Li’s refrain, stolen from a fortune cookie, that “timing is luck.”
If the film still has a reputation for being a dud, for an action thriller that only has two action sequences, that also gives it a mysticism that, being a successful film based on an old TV show, it won’t gain on its own. (Just ask The A-Teama movie you just remembered existed.) Showing a loved one a movie like Miami Vice It’s almost more romantic than catching them up on a genuine classic, because it’s harder to mistake it for a quasi-educational film. This is not Michael Mann’s entry into the canon. This is a film meant to ebb and flow in discourse at the whims of both love and disbelief, uncelebrated by its attendant landmark anniversaries and re-releases. It’s almost annoying how long this film seems to endure, and a strange miracle, too. Time, after all, is luck.
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer based in Brooklyn. He is a regular contributor to The AV Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts on www.sportsalcohol.comalso.
