Machis­mo and Moji­tos – The mis­un­der­stood genius of Mia­mi Vice

A pair of ex-under­cov­er agents respon­si­ble for train­ing Col­in Far­rell for Michael Mann’s Mia­mi Vice tell a fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry in the mak­ing-of doc­u­men­tary Mia­mi Vice: Under­cov­er. In order to cement for Far­rell the life-and-death real­i­ty of the job, as well as the psy­cho­log­i­cal impact of under­cov­er work, they engi­neered a fake drug deal that teeters on dis­as­ter. With actors pos­ing as the skit­tish deal­ers, Far­rell was obliv­i­ous to the fact that he was, in effect, being Punk’d.

Watch­ing the footage of the deal is remark­able. Far­rell, in full Son­ny Crock­ett make­up, defen­sive­ly push­es him­self against the wall as an actor grips a gun near­by; in voiceover Far­rell explains that the exchange kept him up at night for weeks. Indeed, the actor has since revealed that he found the expe­ri­ence of mak­ing Mia­mi Vice incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult. He reg­u­lar­ly abused drugs and alco­hol dur­ing film­ing, check­ing into rehab soon after wrap­ping. It’s a dis­turb­ing par­al­lel to the tra­jec­to­ry of his char­ac­ter in the film, a per­son push­ing them­selves to the lim­its at all costs.

Mann has stat­ed that his Mia­mi Vice remake is a sto­ry of iden­ti­ty and per­for­mance. How do you keep con­trol of the line between real­i­ty and fic­tion in a world where a bad take doesn’t end in ​‘cut’, but with a bul­let? Wide­ly dis­missed at the time of its release, the film’s dense, dream­like approach to evok­ing this idea has since earned it an ardent fol­low­ing. Per­haps it’s under­stand­able that it ini­tial­ly left audi­ences cold though. Con­sid­er the open­ing scene, set to Jay‑Z and Linkin Park’s ​‘Numb/​Encore’, which jar­ring­ly drops us in media res into a night­club stakeout.

Mann has long wield­ed fair­ly gener­ic rock music as a blunt but pow­er­ful emo­tion­al tool – but rarely as auda­cious­ly as this. Infor­ma­tion is flung at the view­er at such a pace that it is almost impos­si­ble to keep up. The direc­tor repli­cates the dis­ori­ent­ing, uneasy point of view of Crock­ett and his part­ner Ricar­do Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) to the extent that we sel­dom have a view of the full picture.

If the film’s air of self-indul­gent cool comes off as cheesy, it’s nev­er wink­ing­ly so. Mia­mi Vice takes itself so seri­ous­ly, in fact, that it makes it eas­i­er for the view­er to sink into the con­struct­ed­ness of these char­ac­ters’ iden­ti­ties. When Crock­ett is drawn into a swel­ter­ing romance with busi­ness­woman and drug traf­fick­er Isabel­la (Gong Li), it threat­ens to over­turn the del­i­cate bal­ance he and Tubbs have estab­lished in their under­cov­er deal­ings with a fear­some drug empire.

Mann cre­ates an intox­i­cat­ing atmos­phere, mir­ror­ing the rush of pow­er and ecsta­sy that enables Crock­ett to get lost in his role. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly true of the courtship sequence which cul­mi­nates in a stun­ning moment of pri­mal attrac­tion, with Crock­ett and Isabel­la tem­porar­i­ly escap­ing on a speed­boat to get moji­tos in Havana.

Crit­ics at the time point­ed to this sequence as the weak­est aspect of the film, a need­less diver­sion from the main sto­ry. Watch­ing it back, how­ev­er, it’s clear this is the pas­sion­ate, thump­ing heart of the film. The way Mann frames the two actors – lean­ing back in their seats, fid­dling with their seat­belts and the boat’s con­trols – cou­pled with the roar­ing engine and soar­ing sound­track, is unde­ni­ably erotic.

Mann’s work is unapolo­get­i­cal­ly mas­cu­line, but he under­stands the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and need to be seen and touched that lies beneath the tough exte­ri­or of his male char­ac­ters. Mia­mi Vice is at once his most hyper-mas­cu­line and ten­der work. It’s one of Farrell’s best per­for­mances, too, his greasy machis­mo bare­ly con­ceal­ing the exis­ten­tial cri­sis the char­ac­ter is going through, which only deep­ens as the film proceeds.

By all accounts, Mann ran a very tough set. Per­haps the film’s dif­fuse nature and some of its dark­er ele­ments can be put down to the fact the pro­duc­tion was in near con­stant tur­moil, plagued by hur­ri­canes, volatile cast mem­bers and poor word of mouth. It’s a visu­al­ly gloomy film, too, with Mann (who was enthralled by his dig­i­tal camera’s abil­i­ty to push into inky black­ness with far more range) even shoot­ing day­time sequences in mut­ed blues and greys. Through­out the film, as with­in the char­ac­ters them­selves, thun­der and light­ning fill the hori­zon. A storm con­stant­ly threat­en­ing to break.