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Miami Vice
A Michael Mann-esque re-imagination of popular 80's TV show Miami Vice. Only now we have a wannabe huge blockbuster star and an actor coming off best actor Oscar win that the industry want to be a box office star.
Initially I gave it a 4 star rating but when I saw the budget of the movie to speak about box office performance I had to reduce the rating. Michael Mann was in his peak form in the 90s. Not with Oscars but in terms of making memorable to semi memorable movies. Last of the Mahicans , Heat, Man-hunter, insider and it even bled through into early 2000s in Ali and Collateral. For the most part his movies are about manly men doing manly things. But one of the things I like about his movies are that he most certainly is an auteur. There is no doubt about it. He is an auteur. He has a very specific style and an eye for shooting a movie and it not only transcends genres from corporate thriller to crime thrillers it also transcends time periods like in public enemies. That's a very hard thing to do even for some of the great directors. Because your directing style has to be so specific and strong for movie buffs to kinda remind them of you whenever they see particular scenes.
But the problem with Michael Mann from the get go is that he is not a commercially viable director. His style has two major disadvantages and both have to be opposite to each other in a successful business model of movie making. His style of directing is not commercial. Its very heightened reality but without the epic scope to it. He can't capture the epic scale of the movie with his directorial style. And the other disadvantage is that he need huge budgets. For him its all about trying to make unrealistic scenarios feel real. So his directorial style forces the epic scale of the movie to be underplayed. He basically doesn't wanna show off the budget of the movie. In this movie there are sets and shots in the movie that must have costed millions to realize but he just focuses on one character. So he just spend 10 million to realize a background that he is never gonna use. There is scene in this movie with a shipping container which takes place for couple of minutes. All they had to do to reduce the expenses is to shot it on a container that is anchored to the harbor. But the director needed few wide shots for fraction of seconds and and some establishing shots.That jumps the budget. There are long tracking shots of private jets transporting drugs traveling through the clouds , over the fields and landscapes. All these will cost pretty penny. But I don't think I have any movie where a flight have been shot like that. It almost feels like they drove a helicopter into the clouds and waited for the plane to fly by in the clouds to shoot it. The movie was low on action and high on style. The action when takes place is way too confusing and realistic. You feel the gun fires and you know that's the real sound an actual gun makes but for some reason you are not interested in the scene that much.
The plot basically starts with an undercover operation cover getting blown resulting in the death of the family of an undercover agent and himself. The teammates of the guy try to infiltrate the drug trade business as drug traffickers. Their secret identities were set up by government with fabricated track records of crime. The resulting story involves successfully transporting drugs into american border once and then a unsuccessful drug trade involving lot of causalities on both sides. The problem with the story is that they do way deep into drug trade way too fast. They meet the actual boss of the operation even before their first transaction. There is a love story between Colin Farrell character and an Asian business woman. Which obviously makes the things complicated but nonetheless she holds no emotions for him. The kidnap of Jamie Foxx girlfriend and the ensuing circumstances is well done but nothing exceptional. Nothing happens in the movie except few bad guys getting killed and few "tense" moments of men proving their guts. When you are spending 100+ million on a story it better be worth it. Its simple logic. If you want to spend 100 million on a movie then it has to be one of these a) It should have mass appeal or b) It should be a movie worthy of awards. When your movie is very realistic looking then you are going against point a and when you have sex scenes and gratuitous butt shots then you are dropping point b. Then who is this movie for ? Are you expecting Colin Farrell and Jamie foxx to put butts on seats ? they have no blockbuster track record. So this movie needed a miracle to recoup its 135 million $ budget even before production began. That is a very bad business decision by producers and the actors who signed on to the movie.This is not the first time Michael Mann has been through this. Except heat , collateral and last of Mahicans(to some extent) all his other movies have been financial disappointments. Insider and Ali can be considered bombs.These kind of movies can be considered as uncalculated and stupid risks. The movies should leave an impressive on audience if 135 million $ is thrown at them. Even if your auteur style is non commercial it will hurt the box office of the movie.
Having said all that, the movie does have a twist which is a surprise for characters in the movie but not for us.So I think the investment on this movie is a bad investment. It almost feels like a movie which is style over substance. The actors really are not doing much. So its not even a performance piece. Its just there. I hope movies like upcoming Ford v Ferrari by James Mangold takes a leaf from this movie on how to avoid the trappings of a genre or type of movie and give audience a cerebral experience. Audience don't just wanna see normal things and be forced to do work for themselves while watching a movie. They need the director to do stuff that is easy and complex at the same time. Creativity over attention to detail. Detail can be included but only till the point of making it look smart. You don't have to create controlled chaos with no fun. A lot of scenes in this movie are building up to something with no pay off. You need pay off. This movie could have been told for 40 million but director needed 135 million. He spent money on sets for shots that don't even last 5 seconds. Sets are not even building upon existing sets. They are completely new sets. All in all this movie is really a cautionary tale. This movie misses the cool factor and adrenaline factor. Audience will give you their attention for 5-10 in every scene. If the scene doesn't hook you up then you are lost. If there are 10 such scenes in a movie then the movie will not be liked ultimately. I think James Mangold is smarter in this area than Michael Mann because he knows what sells and what doesn't. Its just that his biggest success is based on comic book. So, will he transcend the genre like Nolan as a box office draw ? I don't know but we will have to wait and see.
A Michael Mann-esque re-imagination of popular 80's TV show Miami Vice. Only now we have a wannabe huge blockbuster star and an actor coming off best actor Oscar win that the industry want to be a box office star.
Initially I gave it a 4 star rating but when I saw the budget of the movie to speak about box office performance I had to reduce the rating. Michael Mann was in his peak form in the 90s. Not with Oscars but in terms of making memorable to semi memorable movies. Last of the Mahicans , Heat, Man-hunter, insider and it even bled through into early 2000s in Ali and Collateral. For the most part his movies are about manly men doing manly things. But one of the things I like about his movies are that he most certainly is an auteur. There is no doubt about it. He is an auteur. He has a very specific style and an eye for shooting a movie and it not only transcends genres from corporate thriller to crime thrillers it also transcends time periods like in public enemies. That's a very hard thing to do even for some of the great directors. Because your directing style has to be so specific and strong for movie buffs to kinda remind them of you whenever they see particular scenes.
But the problem with Michael Mann from the get go is that he is not a commercially viable director. His style has two major disadvantages and both have to be opposite to each other in a successful business model of movie making. His style of directing is not commercial. Its very heightened reality but without the epic scope to it. He can't capture the epic scale of the movie with his directorial style. And the other disadvantage is that he need huge budgets. For him its all about trying to make unrealistic scenarios feel real. So his directorial style forces the epic scale of the movie to be underplayed. He basically doesn't wanna show off the budget of the movie. In this movie there are sets and shots in the movie that must have costed millions to realize but he just focuses on one character. So he just spend 10 million to realize a background that he is never gonna use. There is scene in this movie with a shipping container which takes place for couple of minutes. All they had to do to reduce the expenses is to shot it on a container that is anchored to the harbor. But the director needed few wide shots for fraction of seconds and and some establishing shots.That jumps the budget. There are long tracking shots of private jets transporting drugs traveling through the clouds , over the fields and landscapes. All these will cost pretty penny. But I don't think I have any movie where a flight have been shot like that. It almost feels like they drove a helicopter into the clouds and waited for the plane to fly by in the clouds to shoot it. The movie was low on action and high on style. The action when takes place is way too confusing and realistic. You feel the gun fires and you know that's the real sound an actual gun makes but for some reason you are not interested in the scene that much.
The plot basically starts with an undercover operation cover getting blown resulting in the death of the family of an undercover agent and himself. The teammates of the guy try to infiltrate the drug trade business as drug traffickers. Their secret identities were set up by government with fabricated track records of crime. The resulting story involves successfully transporting drugs into american border once and then a unsuccessful drug trade involving lot of causalities on both sides. The problem with the story is that they do way deep into drug trade way too fast. They meet the actual boss of the operation even before their first transaction. There is a love story between Colin Farrell character and an Asian business woman. Which obviously makes the things complicated but nonetheless she holds no emotions for him. The kidnap of Jamie Foxx girlfriend and the ensuing circumstances is well done but nothing exceptional. Nothing happens in the movie except few bad guys getting killed and few "tense" moments of men proving their guts. When you are spending 100+ million on a story it better be worth it. Its simple logic. If you want to spend 100 million on a movie then it has to be one of these a) It should have mass appeal or b) It should be a movie worthy of awards. When your movie is very realistic looking then you are going against point a and when you have sex scenes and gratuitous butt shots then you are dropping point b. Then who is this movie for ? Are you expecting Colin Farrell and Jamie foxx to put butts on seats ? they have no blockbuster track record. So this movie needed a miracle to recoup its 135 million $ budget even before production began. That is a very bad business decision by producers and the actors who signed on to the movie.This is not the first time Michael Mann has been through this. Except heat , collateral and last of Mahicans(to some extent) all his other movies have been financial disappointments. Insider and Ali can be considered bombs.These kind of movies can be considered as uncalculated and stupid risks. The movies should leave an impressive on audience if 135 million $ is thrown at them. Even if your auteur style is non commercial it will hurt the box office of the movie.
Having said all that, the movie does have a twist which is a surprise for characters in the movie but not for us.So I think the investment on this movie is a bad investment. It almost feels like a movie which is style over substance. The actors really are not doing much. So its not even a performance piece. Its just there. I hope movies like upcoming Ford v Ferrari by James Mangold takes a leaf from this movie on how to avoid the trappings of a genre or type of movie and give audience a cerebral experience. Audience don't just wanna see normal things and be forced to do work for themselves while watching a movie. They need the director to do stuff that is easy and complex at the same time. Creativity over attention to detail. Detail can be included but only till the point of making it look smart. You don't have to create controlled chaos with no fun. A lot of scenes in this movie are building up to something with no pay off. You need pay off. This movie could have been told for 40 million but director needed 135 million. He spent money on sets for shots that don't even last 5 seconds. Sets are not even building upon existing sets. They are completely new sets. All in all this movie is really a cautionary tale. This movie misses the cool factor and adrenaline factor. Audience will give you their attention for 5-10 in every scene. If the scene doesn't hook you up then you are lost. If there are 10 such scenes in a movie then the movie will not be liked ultimately. I think James Mangold is smarter in this area than Michael Mann because he knows what sells and what doesn't. Its just that his biggest success is based on comic book. So, will he transcend the genre like Nolan as a box office draw ? I don't know but we will have to wait and see.