It's been over 20 years since the hit TV series "Miami Vice" made undercover cops wearing Arman... Miami Vice in the 21st Cent
It's been over 20 years since the hit TV series "Miami Vice" made undercover cops wearing Armani designer suits driving Ferraris and posing as playboy drug dealers to catch the bad guys cool. Now Michael Mann, who served as executive producer on the show, is bringing the wild adventures of Sonny Crockett (Colin Farrell) and Ricardo Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) to the big screen and directs the action packed R-rated film. While the Universal Pictures movie is based on the TV show, don't expect to see any flamingos, alligators, or sailboats, which were regular fixtures in the series. Mann wanted a more modern and contemporary feel for the flick so he took the spirit of the show and created a more up-to-date version which includes a darker plot, stronger language, violent action scenes and more sexuality.
In a room crowded with reporters, bad boy Farrell didn't have a problem lighting up two cigarettes inside the nonsmoking Four Seasons press room nor did he hold back about what he thought of the style of the popular 80's show. "I didn't really think much about good old Don Johnson," said Farrell. "If I was to think about the early Crockett, I would have been in f**kin' trouble because I would have been arguing with him [Mann] over the suits that I wanted to wear, and no socks with my slip-ons, and all that kind of stuff. And, where's my crocodile? Jamie said that he met Don in a restaurant in Los Angeles, and what did he say?"
Farrell joked, "I'm still waiting, but it never arrived -- the jock strap. It might have added something interesting to the character. 'Why is he always itching his balls?' 'He's wearing Don Johnson's jock strap.' But, no. 'Miami Vice,' the TV show, was the original genesis for this piece, but we approached it from, as Michael [Mann] said, a very contemporary standpoint, and it's its own entity, really.
Mann explained the modern twist a bit more. "It's 2006, it's 'Miami Vice' for real, right now, and, at it's core, it has an emotional, overt way of telling its story, and it takes place in the alluring, perfumed reality of Miami, in which you've got this layer of things that are very sensuous and beautiful, and underneath it, there's stuff that's very, very dangerous. So, in that sense, it has an independent origin. I don't think people will be sitting there and comparing the two. The two are co-equal. The series occupies its place in cultural history, for better and for worse, and this is 2006. It's a new day."
Why call it then? Foxx added, "You saw 'Starsky and Hutch,' but it wasn't anything like [the original]. Do you understand what I'm saying? You're not taking 'Miami Vice,' the series. You're taking the spirit of that and you're doing the movie... You can't keep re-hashing it. It's like watching the dunk contest today. You can't go in and do the Dr. J dunk anymore because you're kind of past that, so if you come from the free-throw line, you've seen it. But, if you're wearing Dr. J's jersey, and you bounce it off the backboard from the back, and then you dunk it, you've got the spirit of Dr. J and you changed it."
Naomie Harris () plays Trudy and the girlfriend of Tubbs. Foxx and Harris have a steamy love scene and to make it more comfortable for her, Foxx gave her a present beforehand. "I was really nervous about doing the love scenes because I haven't done one before, actually, and simulating sex in front of 50 people is always really intimidating. But, Michael was really great because he made sure that there were as few people as possible in the room, and Jamie was fantastic as well because he really tried to make me feel comfortable, and keep me laughing, as well, as much as possible. He presented me with a rather unusual present, while we were in the shower, about to do our nude scene together," Harris said.
While Farrell teased Harris about her love scenes, he had his own with Gong Li, who plays his love interest, he had to worry about. It was a little more complicated for these two because of the language barrier. Li doesn't speak English. "Isabella (Li) and Crockett are two people who find each other, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, though they're the right people," Farrell said. "That's the unfortunate thing about what transpires between the two of them. They are two people that live in very volatile environments. He's on one side of the law and this woman, Isabella, is on the other side of the law, and they come together in what is a very dangerous idea and a very bad idea… he finds, with this woman, someone that seems to make complete sense, perfect sense. And so, doing our scene together was just about emotional investment, or emotional realization, in seeing some of yourself -- maybe the best of yourself, and none of the worst -- in the other person, but there is something quite tragic too it, as well, I suppose.
Through her interpreter, Li added, "There are a lot of things that you don't have to use language to communicate. You can use eye contact, body language, and so on. That's what art is about."
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