Building on the heroism of post 9/11 efficiency of protocol, Miami Vice might be the greatesr b-film ever stylized about a director who simply refuses to give in to faggots’ demands, well into his 70s now. The film famously opens with an in media res shot synchronized to the downbeat of a Linkin Park and Jay Z mashup that bolsters a quick disappointment as a femme fatale style dancer is seductively cut away to a boring handheld camera shot that rips the rug from under audiences who would even pick up on the hint of how style can dictate meaning in a movie.
The film is banal in its ability to offend audiences who find Colin Ferrel’s mullet in poor taste, themselves in disbelief that the gay campiness of the 1980s television show is forgone for what is essentially a straight laced police thriller.
The soundtrack, one I found on YouTube, does not include the opening song, the score itself disappointing audiences who crave to capture the allure of a steadicame shot Mann simply will not give, begging film directors to use seduction in their own visions to trance naive millennials into a hypnotic gaze.
I imagine a steady shot on a mulatto in silhouette, her eyes closed in a dance for a daughter only a few men will appreciate, her body on display for all, but her mind for herself. Ferrel sips a cocktail as Jamie Foxx feels a pulse in his chest, asking what he has to offer to a Cubano community still lost in the allure of cocaine and incense, a lung full of smoke from a bong, as our scene slowly fades.
Perhaps what audiences demand from this thought provoking film is less why director Michael Mann does not give us what we demand, and more why we crave a better music video that no one is delivering in an initiative industry that does not know how to let a camera roll without groan inducing action shots.
Even silent film directors from the 1920s cut to the bears, while a select fed trust the uncomfortableness of a gaze only a painter and poet can admire.
A mulatto dances to her own child’s heart, as a detective sips his mojito, unphased by the passion on display…
The Verse Universe 