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• The Best Moka Pots on Serious Eats

Jetting from Act 1 to Act 3 in Go-Fast Boats

Miami Vice, released in 2006, is the definition of a career killer. The movie was made for $135 million dollars, an absolutely ridiculous budget. Adjusted for inflation, the movie would have cost $204 million dollars to make in 2023. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King cost the equivalent of $166 million. Return of the Jedi cost the equivalent of $98 million, and they blew up a planet-sized space station in that one. Miami Vice only cleared about $162 million at the box office, though. Return of the King hit $1.147 billion. Return of the Jedi, $475 million. And while Jamie Foxx, Colin Farrell, and Michael Mann all survived, the whole thing shook their careers in ways that almost broke them.

I’m not sure how a movie remake of a kitschy 80s cop show was supposed to be a slam dunk, but whatever the studio envisioned was the exact opposite of what Mann had in mind. Armed with an Audioslave heavy soundtrack, an actor who just won the Oscar, and a bevy of Mann-standby regulars (John Ortiz, Barry Shabaka Henley), the movie was an absolute mess to make—not to mention that Colin Farrell doesn’t even remember filming it and checked into rehab immediately afterwards.

There’s something to be said about Jamie Foxx’s new demands as an Oscar-winning actor coming through in the stoic, calculating swagger of his Tubbs. Farell, on the other hand, with his long blonde hair, fu manchu, and constant supply of guayaberas, looks and acts like a narcotics officer who can’t stop sampling from his busts. His real life addiction issues, as harrowing as they were, helped him bring an aloof, glassy-eyed confidence to his version of Crockett.

Reactions to the movie were mixed. The buddy cop TV vibe hadn’t materialized despite expectation; Foxx and Farrell are cold and professional on screen, constantly gnawing at each other about how their personal lives affect their work. But Mann diehards saw something there that most people didn’t, even though critics have largely come around on it. Chemistry aside, the core of the problem of the film seemed to be a lack of narrative and an incoherent plot: dialogue is low in the mix, making some interactions hard to parse, and characters are never introduced. Instead of giving us any amount of exposition, Mann opts for his characters to speak the way a member of the vice squad would speak in that situation: that means code, lingo, slang, and operational patter dominate any conversation that does end up audible.

As far as the story goes, it’s easy to sum up. Crockett and Tubbs work undercover for the Miami-Dade vice department. A former source calls them in a panic; he’d been made, and they find out that there’s a leak at the FBI, who had taken over the drug stings in the area. The FBI was working with other federal and state agencies, too, so to keep their info tight they turn to Crockett and Tubbs to suss out the leak, find out who’s behind the big drug shipments, and bring home the busts. They pose as smugglers, get hired by the drug cartel, Crockett recklessly tries to romance the cartel’s money manager and falls in love, the face of the cartel doesn’t trust Crockett and Tubbs, eventually there’s a shootout.

The thesis of the movie is simple, and resonates in every single other Michael Mann movie. Crockett and Tubbs are incredibly good at being cops, and even when it threatens their safety and their personal lives they don’t know how to do anything else. When questioning if they should go through with their sting operation, even when they’re suspicious of cartel lieutenant José Yero (John Ortiz), C&T and team just flatly deliver a chorus of “It’s what we do.” Taken at face value, it could be read as a cocky declaration of empowerment. But during this operation, Tubbs’ girlfriend, Trudy (played by Naomi Harris), the team’s information officer, is taken captive by the white supremacist gang who distributes the cartel’s drugs. They put a C4 necklace around her neck, and the team now has to rescue her—and while expertly dispatching a few shithead rednecks at a trailer park, Yero detonates the collar anyway and Trudy’s put into a coma. “It’s what we do,” is a confession; they don’t know how to return to the world of regular people. Their lives only feel meaningful when they’re running go-fast boats from South America to Florida.

The driver of Miami Vice is a peak into the age old Mann question: how do you square being a human with desires against existing on one side or the other of the criminal divide? Tubbs fell in love with his teammate even though that compromises his ability to execute his job without distraction. Crockett tries to pull information out of white collar cartel member Isabella (Gong Li) through a whirlwind romance and ends up caught up in the passion of a forbidden tryst (that, of course, threatens the entire operation). Once you can square up the emotional core of the movie, it’s easier to follow its beats. There’s no major double cross. There are no psychological mind games. From the start, Yero says he doesn’t trust Crockett and Tubbs and wants to kill them. Then he tries to. Isabella warns Crockett that Yero wants to kill them. They do the job anyway.

On a first watch, Miami Vice seems frustrating. Everything about the set up creates the atmosphere of an impending twist, some sort of masterful reveal that gives the momentum of the movie purpose. There is a reveal, but it’s not for the audience. During the final shootout where Yero has Isabella at gunpoint, Crockett risks everything he can to get her to safety before the bullets start to fly. When she sees FBI agents running towards the encounter and Crockett radioing in positions to the feds, her heart breaks. She’s been a criminal all her life, and even if her intuition and everyone around her told her that this man was the cops, she didn’t let herself believe it. Mann doesn’t want us to have our expectations shattered; he wants us to watch the characters on screen go through it instead.

So if Miami Vice is actually a movie about how desire clouds our ability to stay firmly rooted in systemic belief, then it doesn’t really matter that we don’t get any backstory for FBI team leader Fujima (Ciarán Hinds). Or that you know his name at all. The details we expect in a regular movie to establish time and place are unnecessary here: Michael Mann is taking us on the ultimate ride along, he’s not making a narrative picture. The shaky, handheld shots weaving in and out of rooms are proof of that. Neon-genesis aside, Miami Vice is a movie that asks the audience to be an active viewer. It wants you to be present and paying attention.

One of my favorite stories about Toni Morrison, one of my favorite authors, is when Oprah Winfrey finished reading Beloved:

In the same vein, Mann’s disdain for small talk and exposition creates an opportunity for impact: his movies only ever improve on rewatch, and meaning begins to solidify in understanding. Mann is constantly referred to as the director most plagued by a style over substance approach, but that requires a shallow understanding of what’s on the screen. The story is happening in front of you, you just won’t have a characters regurgitating the plot in dialogue to make sure you’re caught up.

Stripped bare of these three-act conventions, Miami Vice is a confusing first watch. But that’s ultimately the point of this movie: it challenges your ability as a media consumer, and when everything made these days is studio-noted to death, being challenged as a viewer is refreshing. Don’t expect anyone to explain Tubbs and Trudy’s relationship. Mann shows you all you need to know in an extremely tender shower-and-sex scene. Who cares when they met or how when you get to actually watch true intimacy unfold in front of you?

French filmmaker Robert Bresson once said, “I'd rather people feel a film before understanding it. I'd rather feelings arise before intellect.” I think it goes a bit further: you have to be able to feel a movie in order to understand it. Miami Vice knows this, even if a wide swath of its viewers missed it.

Read

• Rethinking ‘cool’ gunfights in a mass shooting epidemic at Polygon

I love elaborate, frightening, thrilling gun fights in movies. But I have a hard time reconciling that with the fact that I think all guns should be destroyed in real life. I really liked this piece on Polygon by Joshua Rivera that grapples with this question. Gangs of London (especially the first season) is an incredible action series that’s awash in hyper violence. One of the best parts about the show (and Michael Mann movies) is how terrifying every shootout is and how tragic every death is. Rivera’s piece argues that if politicians won’t take gun violence seriously, maybe movies and TV can—even if it’s potentially glorified in the process.

Watch

• Perry Mason Season 2

I’m a sucker for flawed, smug protagonists with anger issues. Why wouldn’t unchecked anger be a part of your personality when you’ve been beat down by injustice for so long? The second season of Perry Mason was even stronger than the first, showcasing a warts-and-all version of Depression-era Los Angeles and the scrappy lawyer team trying to find ways to fight back. Juliet Rylance is great as Della Street, and it’s always fun seeing Shea Whigham play a sloppy grump. With just the right mix of courtroom drama and gumshoe mystery, it’s an absolute shame that HBO cancelled this series just as it was finding its footing.

Listen

• Only Self Jesus Piece

I never quite knew what to do with mid-tempo beatdown style hardcore music. The older I get, however, I just don’t have as much patience for fast songs. I want complex rhythms and tangible grooves. Jesus Piece is a metalcore band out Philly that understands this. I picked up a used LP of Only Self last weekend, and I love the way the band just lies heavy in the cut. The guitars live in a world shaped by the patterns that they play rather than the notes, and the drummer brings in some sickening, lurching beats. Picking out the differences between modern hardcore/metal crossover bands is probably hard for people who are new to the genre, but Jesus Piece put together something unique for their debut full length in 2018.

Consume

• Vignette Coffee Roasters

I spent 16 years working in the specialty coffee industry, and it’s been nice this last year to be just a coffee consumer again. Working for a coffee roasting company means you spend a lot of time drinking that company’s coffee, and after a while you can lost perspective on what else is going on out there. I’ve been loving Vignette. They have a really excellent subscription program that offers great value, and their coffees are sweet, balanced, and complex. The company was founded by Mandy and Michael, two coffee industry friends, and it’s a great example of what two longtime coffee pros can put together when they set out on their own: no gimmicky special reserve lots, experimental processing, or skimpy bag sizes. Vignette has coffees you’ll want to brew and drink every morning.

Artwork by Ashley Elander Strandquist. You can view her illustration work here and check out her printing business here.