29 July 2006

Miami Vice?

Whaddaya know. Stephanie Zacharek inspires me to want to see Miami Vice!
Miami Vice is good, although perhaps not simply good: This is a fascinating picture, and sometimes a perplexing one, an action picture with a personal sensibility behind it — it's not just driven by the voices of some unseen marketing committee. The picture is almost nothing like the TV show it's based on. Mann defies nostalgia instead of stroking it: The Miami Vice of television was all creamy pastels and sun-drenched vistas, a luxe travel-poster fantasy with just a few sprinkles of danger thrown in. But Mann's movie comes from, and shows us, a very different world. This is a somber action picture, one that understands the thrill of stylish violence but also reckons with the weight and meaning of that violence — its machismo is laced with regret.
As usual, Ms Zacharek is worth going through Salon's advertising wall to reach.

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