An adaptation of the 1980s television series of the same name, of which Mann was an executive producer, it stars Colin Farrell as James "Sonny" Crockett and Jamie Foxx as Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs, MDPD detectives who go undercover to fight drug trafficking operations.
The ensemble supporting cast includes Gong Li, Naomie Harris, Barry Shabaka Henley, John Ortiz, Luis Tosar, Ciarán Hinds, Elizabeth Rodriguez, John Hawkes, Justin Theroux, Isaach De Bankolé, Eddie Marsan, and Tom Towles.
While working an undercover prostitute sting operation in a nightclub to arrest a pimp named Neptune, Miami-Dade Police detectives James "Sonny" Crockett and Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs receive a frantic phone call from their former informant Alonzo Stevens.
Crockett and Tubbs quickly contact the FBI Special Agent in Charge John Fujima and warn him about Stevens' safety.
Stevens reveals that a Colombian cartel had become aware that Russian FSB operatives (now dead) were working undercover with the FBI, and had threatened to murder Leonetta via a C-4 necklace bomb if he did not confess.
He tells them to meet him downtown, where they are introduced in person to Fujima, head of the Florida Joint Inter-Agency Task Force between the FBI, the DEA, and ICE.
Fujima enlists Crockett and Tubbs, making them Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force deputies, to lead a deep undercover operation.
Posing as highly skilled drug smugglers, Sonny and Rico offer their services to Yero, the cartel's security and intelligence man.
After a high-tension meeting, they pass screening and are introduced to Arcángel de Jesús Montoya, transnational drug trafficking kingpin.
In the course of their investigation, Crockett and Tubbs learn that the cartel is using the Aryan Brotherhood to distribute drugs, and supply them with state-of-the-art weaponry, which they had used to kill the Russian undercovers.
Meanwhile, Crockett tries to gather further evidence from Montoya's financial adviser and lover, Isabella but ends up starting a secret romance with her while on a trip by speedboat to Cuba.
Those fears are soon realized as Trudy, the unit's intelligence agent, and Rico's girlfriend, is kidnapped by the Aryan Brotherhood on Yero's order, who never trusted Crockett and Tubbs.
Uruguay locations included the seaside resort Atlántida standing in for Havana,[9] the old building of the Carrasco International Airport, and the Rambla waterfront avenue and the Old City in Montevideo.
He had won an Academy Award after signing onto the film but before production began, and subsequently called for upgrades in his salary and other compensation.
Eventually, after gunshots were fired on set in the Dominican Republic on October 24, 2005, Foxx left the country and returned to the United States.
This forced the production to abandon the script's intended ending, slated to be shot in Paraguay, and revert to a previously discarded one that Mann had written, which was set in Miami.
[3] Sal Magluta, the drug trafficker identified by Tubbs as running go-fast boats in the film's opening scenes, is in fact one of Miami's real-life reputed "Cocaine Cowboys"[12] and is currently serving a life sentence for money laundering.
For several months before its release, the official web site hosted the first teaser trailer for download as a High-Definition WMV file.
"[14] The musical score was composed by John Murphy, with additional cues by Klaus Badelt, Mark Batson and Tim Motzer.
Mann's "Director's Edit" released on DVD places the song in the film just prior to the climactic gun battle as suggested by members of the production crew during post-production.
The website's critical consensus reads: "Miami Vice is beautifully shot but the lead characters lack the charisma of their TV series counterparts, and the underdeveloped story is well below the standards of Michael Mann's better films.
[32] The New York Times critic Manohla Dargis declared it "glorious entertainment" in her year-end wrap-up and praised its innovative use of digital photography.
[33] The film received negative reviews from The Washington Post[34] and the Los Angeles Times, focusing in part on comparisons with the 1980s series and on the plot.
The hi-def videography gives a tactile, scorching sense of the characters' surroundings, and Colin Farrell and Gong Li's doomed love affair bears the full tragic brunt of Mann's mesmerizing on-the-fly narrative.
[48] It debuted in third place (behind Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Superman Returns) and managed to sell over a million copies in its first week alone.