Cop out

I’m such a dunderhead. Everyone told me that Miami Vice would be rubbish, and I kept replying, ‘No, no it won’t; you see, it’s directed by Michael Mann and he’s brilliant. He made Manhunter, Heat, The Insider and Collateral…it’s going to be great.’ People said, ‘But it’ll be naff and embarrassing, with spivvy hairdos and loose-fitting suits.’ And I would reply, ‘No, don’t be silly, it’s not set in the Eighties. It’ll be cool, dark, gritty, urban…’

Well, don’t I feel like the prize banana. I think even subscribers to FHM magazine, at whom this film is undoubtedly aimed, will be hard pressed to enjoy themselves. My heart, which was beating an optimistic pit-a-pat as the lights were dimmed, had slowed to energy-saving mode after the first few minutes. Loose-fitting suits? Check (is it something to do with the weather?). Silly hairdos? Check. Colin Farrell’s is even worse than it was in Alexander. There it was a peroxide mullet; here it’s a blonde-striped bob that he tucks into a neat ponytail when he goes into action. Poor lad.

So: Miami’s slickest undercover cops, Crockett (Colin Farrell) and Tubbs (Jamie Foxx), are subcontracted by the FBI to infiltrate a drugs-trafficking network. Using immaculate false identities they manoeuvre themselves into contact with a drugs-trading middleman, José (John Ortiz), who leads them to the head honcho, Montoya — an Escobar-like figure with glittering eyes and a neatly trimmed beard. Montoya commissions Crockett and Tubbs to move a drug load into south Florida. (They manage this, incidentally, by simply hiding their little aeroplane in another plane’s blind spot as they enter American air space, so that theirs doesn’t show up on air-traffic control. Who knew it could be so easy? I seem to be in the wrong line of work.)