Mann Down

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a magazine ad for Ray-Ban sunglasses, featuring Tyrese and Josh Wald! (Mmmmm... Josh Wald...)

No, it's the poster for Michael Mann's Miami Vice, which is as inert and personality-flattening as the photo suggests, but not in any typical way. There isn't anything average about Miami Vice except its ultimate mediocrity: otherwise, this movie can't make up its mind whether it wants to be an action thriller, a film-school project, or a deconstructionist essay. That's the kind of summer carnival ride you don't see every day, certainly not in scrunchy, frizzy DV. Farrell and Foxx, both of whom look like they thought they'd signed up for something else, quickly fall by the wayside as Mann and cinematographer Dion Beebe put their own muscles and cutting-edge aspirations front and center. Bully for them, manifestly talented as they are, but I wasn't convinced that any of Miami Vice really worked after the first five minutes. You can read my full review here. And then you can switch back to Josh.

(Image © 2006 Universal Pictures)