0:02

Welcome

0:05

back to Manhunting,

0:08

in which Waypoint

0:11

and friends are working

0:14

through the filmography

0:25

of

0:29

Michael Mann and examining his themes of labor,

0:31

craft, capital, and dudes

0:34

rocking. Today, as usual, we welcome

0:36

Nextlander's Alex Navarro and Philadelphia's

0:39

own D'Alessina back to the mean

0:41

streets of Miami and the deep blue

0:43

waters of the Caribbean in Mann's 2006 film

0:46

adaptation of his breakthrough TV hit. So

0:49

gang,

0:50

Miami Vice is the only Michael

0:53

Mann movie I ever stopped watching partway through,

0:55

which I've seen worse ones

0:58

all the way through. But this one,

1:00

for whatever reason, I bailed on it. I think

1:02

it's because back in its original DVD

1:04

release, I caught the opening of it either it

1:07

was either on disc or cable. And

1:09

I actually think it might have been cable. Remember the

1:11

movie looking really, really bad, which

1:13

I suspect was cable compression

1:15

on top of the digital

1:17

look that we're going to talk about that this

1:19

film has. But even

1:22

beyond that, I bailed on it before the central

1:24

undercover operation that

1:26

occupies most of the film's runtime, before they

1:29

even got underway. I simply

1:31

I could not follow what was happening.

1:33

I could not really even process

1:36

Colin Farrell's or Jamie Foxx's performances

1:39

as that of Sonny Crockett and Ricardo

1:41

Tubbs, as they mostly

1:43

seemed to brood or speak in jargon.

1:46

And then we go off to some other baffling location.

1:49

It was neither it was neither the thrilling

1:52

follow up to Collateral I'd expected

1:54

and was kind of primed for, nor was it

1:57

in any way like attuned to

1:59

the.

1:59

of the original show, which,

2:02

you know, at the time, I remember loving quite a bit.

2:04

So I turned it off and I forgot about

2:06

it for about five years.

2:08

So weirdly enough, years later, I'm at an

2:11

X-Com event in New York covering the

2:13

game's reveal for PC

2:15

Power Play.

2:17

And because I'm working for an Australian

2:19

outfit, I ended up being grouped with, because

2:21

PR always groups you with like whatever region press

2:25

like is from. I ended

2:27

up being grouped with the Australian and New Zealand reporters

2:30

for this entire weekend and ended

2:32

up discovering that David

2:35

Hollingworth, which is a very

2:37

cool person that I got to hang out with on that

2:39

trip and I think only the one time in my life, but

2:42

discovered that David

2:44

was a fellow man aficionado.

2:46

And so as one does,

2:48

we got to comparing notes on a bunch of films, conversation

2:51

turned on Miami Vice and I basically gave the

2:54

opinion I gave a moment ago, that it was a mess,

2:57

that it was a misfire. And

3:00

it

3:00

was like waving the red cape to a bull.

3:02

David began preaching with the fervor

3:04

of a convert turned missionary. Oh,

3:07

you haven't seen the director's cut? Well, you

3:09

haven't even seen the film. And

3:12

really even going into it, expecting

3:15

anything like the TV series

3:18

or like collateral was a mistake, that Miami

3:20

Vice as a movie was something

3:22

altogether different than the TV show or man's

3:24

other work. It was

3:26

an expressionist mural about

3:28

Miami Vice and undercover work,

3:30

not a straightforward narrative and so on

3:32

and so forth.

3:33

The thing is, I

3:35

got my curiosity peeked, but when I did revisit

3:37

it via the director's cut, Blu-ray

3:40

a few years later, it clicked for me and I

3:42

came away understanding why there

3:44

are now so many reappraisals of it as

3:47

a man masterpiece. I was not

3:49

sure how I would feel about it this time around

3:51

and was very curious what

3:53

y'all would make of it, watching it today. So before

3:56

we get into the broad outlines of the film,

3:58

did we come away feeling... Like

4:00

we experienced some sort of cinematic

4:03

tour de force or

4:05

did we end up as bemused as

4:08

audiences were in 2006 and frankly

4:11

in his interviews as

4:13

as Michael Mann himself seems to be by this movie.

4:16

I have a tweet that I made to answer

4:19

this. Okay. I

4:21

don't know what movies are the bad

4:23

fast and the furious movies, but

4:26

I bet those are massively superior to

4:28

Miami Vice. Okay.

4:32

So the bad ones are two and four primarily.

4:36

And I would say that Miami Vice

4:39

is a better movie than two

4:41

and maybe an equivalent film to four.

4:47

I don't know if that helps. I made it considerably

4:50

more highly than either of those movies. But

4:52

then again, I am I am like drunk

4:55

off the Kool-Aid.

4:56

Yes, I actually know Tokyo Drift. I can

4:58

tell you that. I'm not that, but I will say

5:00

actually I find four is actually pretty

5:02

rough and for talking fast and furious. I think four has

5:04

some for a movie that should be a big celebratory

5:07

like Raving the Man Back Together.

5:09

It does not feel solid. Five is

5:11

the one that finally makes good on that. Yeah.

5:15

Uh, Alex, in terms of your reaction

5:18

to returning to Miami Vice here.

5:21

So I have only seen this

5:23

movie once and I when

5:25

I saw it, it was I think the DVD

5:27

release, which was the director's special edition.

5:30

You know, it's not technically I don't know if it's technically a director's

5:32

cut, but it's the one that has,

5:34

you know, he reworked somewhat from the

5:36

theatrical release.

5:38

And I watched it with

5:40

my partner at the time and both of

5:43

us came away from it being like, we

5:45

both really like Miami Vice. We both

5:47

really like these actors. I really like Michael

5:49

Mann.

5:50

Why didn't this work?

5:52

And you know, it has

5:54

kind of kept me away from it for the most part

5:56

since then because I

5:58

I never really even found a good footing.

5:59

for why I didn't like it. I just found it

6:02

kind of off putting and unpleasant.

6:04

And watching it

6:07

now, I understand

6:09

why there is a desire to reappraise

6:11

it, because there is a certain

6:13

quality to it that I think I

6:16

can see people latching onto and

6:18

finding

6:19

something to like about with it. But

6:22

I still think that it is.

6:24

It is a vibe in search of a movie.

6:26

It is like

6:29

it feels like pieces of a really

6:31

good pilot and a pretty good season

6:33

finale of a show that

6:36

eschews all the stuff in between that

6:38

would either establish these characters or

6:41

like really introduce you to what the hell is going

6:43

on.

6:44

And, you know, knowing about his trouble

6:46

history and sort of like the production behind it and

6:48

all the things that went wrong.

6:51

It shows in the product.

6:53

I just think that it feels like

6:55

my my takeaway from it was that this

6:58

felt to me like an overcorrection on

7:00

man's part of trying to establish

7:03

that he still understands what is cool

7:05

circa 2006.

7:08

And I think he misses the mark,

7:10

though, maybe not quite as far as someone of

7:12

his age and pedigree could

7:14

have compared to a lot of other filmmakers.

7:17

So the thing I'll say about the the

7:19

cool part of it is the

7:21

thing I'm not sure that I that I'm not

7:23

sure I agree with there is that

7:27

this is such a dour and frequently

7:29

joyless movie that I wonder

7:32

if cool was it all on the mood board

7:34

while while they're making it. It's Michael Mann. It definitely

7:37

was. It was true.

7:39

That's true. I'm getting here's

7:41

the thing. The Bush years were

7:43

dour, joyless years

7:46

in American history and the vibe

7:48

and the aesthetic of the time. Was

7:51

not one that was particularly celebratory

7:54

or exciting the

7:56

way that the 1980s and the

7:59

Koch fueled Miami.

7:59

knights were.

8:01

Like the version of the world that he is portraying

8:03

here is something a lot closer to collateral.

8:06

And cool at this point

8:08

is stoicism and violence

8:11

and guy dude's not so much rocking as

8:14

being you know, like very stoic

8:17

badass kind of guys. And I

8:19

think that is where it falls

8:22

short because that vibe

8:24

is antithetical to the one

8:26

established in Miami Vice proper.

8:28

Even the most serious episodes of the show

8:31

just feel like

8:33

celebrations compared to what is going

8:35

on here.

8:37

So before

8:39

we get more into the movie, here's

8:41

the plot in a nutshell. Such

8:43

as it is. For all that, yeah, for all that

8:45

happens in this movie is actually very simple plot

8:48

and yet the movie can be very hard to follow. But

8:50

here goes in the middle of an undercover

8:52

operation Crockett and Tubbs receive a

8:54

call from a former informant

8:57

that they turned over to the feds as

8:59

an intelligence source. He warns that

9:01

the federal investigation has gone disastrously

9:03

wrong. No sooner can the two Miami

9:06

cops sound the alarm than their sources killed

9:08

himself and a pair of federal agents have been

9:10

massacred by the Aryan Brotherhood in an

9:12

ambush. As their contact

9:14

with the FBI explains it because

9:16

it was a joint federal task force. Every

9:19

agency involved is implicated in the

9:21

leak that caused this disaster. Therefore

9:24

it is down to Crockett and Tubbs as the only

9:26

people who are not part of that circle to figure

9:29

out how this went wrong. To do

9:31

so, they have to infiltrate the powerful drug

9:34

cartel being operated by Jesus Montoya.

9:37

And that means getting past his

9:40

intelligence chief Jose

9:42

Yero and winning

9:44

the trust of his top lieutenant,

9:47

Gong Li playing

9:49

Isabella, a woman who

9:51

has a fatal weakness for Colin

9:54

Farrell at his most dirtbag. His interpretation

9:57

of Sonny Crockett is Yeah,

10:00

just absolute lounge lizard vibes.

10:04

Definitely.

10:05

In no time at all, Crockett

10:07

and Isabella have become lovers. Tubbs

10:11

has begun to doubt whether Crockett

10:13

has his head fully in the game. And

10:16

Jose Iero is continually

10:20

prodding, trying to figure out why these

10:22

guys seem so profoundly off,

10:24

why they, in fact, kind of seem

10:27

like cops. Things come

10:29

to a head when Iero basically

10:32

deduces that Isabella is fully in

10:34

love with Crockett, and that enables

10:37

him to get the green light to really

10:39

put the screws to them by kidnapping

10:43

fellow Miami detective and

10:45

girlfriend of Ricardo Tubbs. Trudy

10:48

having her kidnapped by the Aryan

10:51

Brotherhood and trying to force

10:53

the the cops into doing

10:56

doing a deal with with Iero and

10:58

then almost certainly getting whacked afterwards. They

11:01

managed to get ahead of the plan. They foil

11:04

it in a nighttime gun battle

11:06

down by the docks. But in the process, it

11:09

is revealed that they are, in fact,

11:12

undercover cops. Jose was right. They've

11:14

been lying to Isabella. And

11:17

as the film ends, Crockett

11:20

takes Isabella away from the gunfight

11:22

and basically dials

11:24

up witness protection, has

11:26

her sent far, far away from him as

11:29

they as they are parted forever while

11:33

Tubbs and Trudy are reunited

11:36

in in the hospital in Miami.

11:39

We'll get into this in a bit more detail, but that's the

11:42

that is the broad outline. I

11:44

think right away, one of the things

11:47

that. Is

11:49

sort of a signature of this of this film is that

11:52

the opening is very disorienting. They

11:55

oddly enough, I found it more disorienting in the

11:58

theatrical cut, which. Weirdly

12:00

enough is more to the point. The

12:02

director's cut opens on

12:05

a

12:06

speed boat race.

12:08

And I don't think the theatrical cut did. The

12:10

speed boat race is very much a,

12:13

well, we're allowed to do this. So we're going

12:15

to shoot a bunch of dudes racing

12:18

speedboats along South

12:20

Beach, effectively. And

12:23

that turns out to be in the service of uncovering

12:25

a trafficking operation. So the first 20 minutes

12:28

we have in this movie are classic

12:30

and misleading Miami Vice vibes, speedboats.

12:33

Going undercover as like cool swaggy

12:36

dudes hanging with drug lords and

12:38

pimps. But not really.

12:41

No? No, because the filming

12:44

of the speedboat is so off

12:46

from Miami Vice vibes.

12:48

It isn't intense. Like it's almost filmed

12:51

like a fucking car chase. Yes. Like

12:53

it is not like, yeah, or a war movie.

12:55

It is not filmed. Here's

12:58

like, it's not the opening

13:00

to Miami Vice. It's not the opening to

13:02

silk stockings even. It's like this

13:05

really gritty, intense, high

13:07

speed, lots of choppy cuts, like

13:11

tight shots of Jamie Foxx looking

13:13

pissed off in a cockpit of a boat. Like

13:16

it's such a weird, jarring,

13:19

like disorienting introduction. I'll offer

13:21

this to you very much so.

13:23

Like the speedboats,

13:25

the thing that is noticeable too is in

13:27

Miami Vice, the TV show, this scene would be

13:30

everyone out on open cigarette boats, wind

13:32

blowing in their hair, everywhere. This

13:34

does have like an almost military, like

13:36

they are like bolted down inside

13:39

these like almost aircraft

13:41

cockpits on water and

13:43

speaking to each other through headsets. Like

13:46

to me, I guess what it feels like, this still

13:48

feels like Miami Vice in some ways,

13:50

but like maybe updated to those aesthetics

13:53

that Alex alluded to, but also trying to

13:55

maybe highlight

13:56

how much times have changed that like, yo,

13:59

boat racing, no.

13:59

longer looks like it once did.

14:02

And none of this is going to feel maybe

14:04

entirely like it did in

14:07

the TV show. But

14:10

I think for me, I was sort of misdirected

14:13

here into thinking, well, we're still fundamentally in the world

14:15

of Miami Vice. It's just that world

14:17

has changed.

14:22

And I think I was sort of

14:25

in that headspace right up until they get that phone

14:27

call,

14:27

at which point

14:30

I always feel like from that moment onward, I

14:33

feel like I'm racing to keep up with this movie,

14:35

that things are changing faster

14:37

than the movie can even like lay out. And

14:41

that's at once maybe a weakness of this film, but

14:43

also is maybe a

14:45

signature strength of it. I

14:48

don't know. Like how did you evaluate

14:51

this opening scene as we

14:53

have one operation that they

14:55

take time to lay out? It's almost a mission impossible.

14:58

Like everyone assigned their roles, they're

15:00

setting up their sting. And

15:01

then all of that is kind of blown up as

15:04

they are called out onto the roof to have a conversation

15:07

about something completely different

15:09

over the phone.

15:10

I mean, that's the part to me that feels very

15:13

much like TV pilot. You know

15:15

what I mean? It's the sense that there

15:17

are these continuing adventures going on

15:19

of these cops doing these things. And

15:22

it's exactly the kind of way you would establish them in a TV

15:24

show of like, hey, you know, we'll get back to this

15:26

kind of case later. But for now, we've got to do

15:28

this, you know, this other serious business

15:31

going on.

15:32

And I don't think it really works very

15:34

well in this format, because they

15:36

spend so much time setting up

15:38

this operation and this basically

15:41

this human trafficking

15:43

thing that is going on. And you're kind of like, actually,

15:45

I'd like some resolution on this, because it seems

15:48

like these people are pretty fucked up and they're doing some pretty

15:50

fucked up shit.

15:52

But actually, we're just gonna completely

15:54

disregard this entire thing. Once

15:56

Tubbs is done kicking this guy's ass in the club,

15:58

and then we get to have some-

15:59

some

16:00

sick cell phone rooftop shots while

16:03

Crockett very concernedly talks to this

16:05

informant dude.

16:07

Like I just,

16:08

I think there are some cool notes in there,

16:11

but as a sequence to introduce

16:13

you to what is going on in this movie and who these people are,

16:16

it feels out of step.

16:18

No, it's so funny that you brought up the intro,

16:21

like the TV show thing, cause it does feel like, you

16:24

know, when you get those like those TV

16:26

episodes of like procedurals where like they're wrapping

16:28

up a case or like they

16:30

introduce another thing and like

16:32

you get the show where it's like, wait, no, I was actually

16:34

interested in the thing you set up. Yeah.

16:37

Can we go back to the commercial break where

16:39

you had that other case, it was actually more interesting,

16:42

but like this one we get like, we get the

16:44

club scene in

16:46

the first three minutes.

16:48

Yeah, it's very lateral club scene. Yeah,

16:50

more or less. We get like, yeah, we get the whole

16:53

fucking, you know, we get

16:55

like,

16:57

God, like the super club scene right

16:59

off the bat. And then that's it. We're

17:01

done. That is the most fun you see

17:03

anyone have in this movie. Until Havana,

17:05

which,

17:08

you know, Michael Mann, not so crypto

17:11

socialist. If you're making,

17:13

if you're making the Jerry Bruckheimer,

17:16

Miami Vice,

17:18

that club scene is your like, that is, that's

17:21

like, you know, that's your act three. Like

17:23

we are going to the club and shit's going

17:25

to get like break bad and get fucking

17:27

real. And we're going to have like, you know, a

17:30

lineup of like who's who

17:32

of like Miami club music at the time.

17:35

We should have the whole

17:37

Spotify playlist. So

17:41

Michael Mann is a fish

17:43

too old for the club, but he does

17:45

like that one M&M track. Yeah.

17:49

Yeah. Like what is on the soundtrack?

17:51

It's like, it's the Jay Z, Lincoln

17:53

Park mashup. That goes into

17:55

gold frat. Yeah. There's

17:58

the Nina Simone remix. OK,

18:01

by the way, like this is not a particularly egregious

18:03

like it's not egregious here, but I actually

18:06

curse everyone who made Cinnerman a just

18:09

like completely washed music

18:11

cue in movies like so many people

18:14

used it

18:15

all in space of like five, six years.

18:17

It's all the Thomas Crown affairs fault. It

18:21

is like that is ground

18:23

zero for that song being in everything for 10

18:25

years after. No, you're you're you're completely

18:28

right. No, I hear it and I'm like, well,

18:30

you just had no ideas for how to score the same. No,

18:33

it doesn't feel like a club soundtrack.

18:35

The Jay-Z track is like the closest you

18:37

get to it.

18:38

But this feels very much like grandpa

18:40

got some CDs. Check this out. It does

18:43

not have the new and hip

18:45

and now vibe of a Miami

18:47

dance club.

18:49

And it's just I want to briefly mention

18:51

you talked about Jerry Bruckheimer's

18:53

Miami Vice. That's bad boys. And

18:55

I know.

18:56

And I think partial like I don't know. Again,

18:58

I don't think Michael Mann has ever said anything to this effect. This

19:01

movie feels like an overcorrection away

19:03

from bad boys. It is he seems annoyed

19:06

by the concept of those movies and

19:08

what Michael Bay deems cool. And he is

19:10

trying to go in the complete other direction.

19:12

He saw the scene of Will Smith

19:15

following the strippers. He like

19:17

like foot. Yeah. In the club

19:19

scene. Well, God, was it stabbing

19:21

Westward for this? I believe it was. Yes.

19:24

I think Westward is as

19:26

absurd as Michael Mann's. He's like

19:28

too old to have a vision

19:31

of what

19:31

sexy Miami clubs are. But

19:33

like, yeah, he saw that scene and got so

19:36

pissed off. Well,

19:39

so one other thing I would add, though, is so

19:41

they abandoned this case. And you're right. One

19:43

of the things that Tom is furious about is

19:46

these are like.

19:49

The worst sort of trafficker,

19:51

right? Like these are like

19:54

violent, abusive, like

19:56

sex traffickers. You know, the.

20:00

the archetype of the

20:02

of like sort of the character that always mobilizes

20:04

moral panics around around

20:07

like sex work. But

20:09

it is, it's something

20:12

like

20:13

tub, you know, we have the moment of like

20:15

tubs lets it get to him and like

20:18

rohulks out in the club. But then the

20:20

minutes of the call comes, they drop entirely.

20:23

But I do think that sort

20:25

of completely cutting loose that intervention

20:28

to help these women. Uh,

20:32

I feel like that is something that

20:34

film is knowingly doing and it sets up what

20:37

is going to be like tubs is kind of kind of crisis

20:39

of faith midway through this film of like, what is the value

20:42

of what we do? Like,

20:43

is this is this helpful to the world

20:46

in any way? Or is it just,

20:49

you know, activity of the state? Yeah,

20:52

the thing is, and again, I think

20:55

he's kind of working from, you

20:57

know,

20:58

he's already kind of put himself in the hole here

21:00

by calling this Miami Vice. Yeah,

21:02

because whether or not, you know,

21:04

you expect the 80s level of cool

21:06

to appear in a movie like this,

21:09

there is an inherent expectation to something

21:11

like that, especially something that is being made by

21:13

Michael Mann, one of the people who worked on that show.

21:16

And I

21:17

just think that this vision of Miami

21:20

Vice is too self

21:22

serious in a way that I

21:25

think is just off putting for something

21:27

called that. Like, I don't think calling them Crockett

21:29

and Tubbs did these characters any

21:31

favor because it's not even that they

21:34

feel like bad characters or anything that were, you know, like

21:36

a bad portrayal of those characters. They

21:38

just don't really feel like characters

21:41

like

21:42

Crockett is like, yes, there's

21:44

definitely like a scuzzy lounge lizard lizard thing

21:46

happening there. But I think that's just Colin

21:48

Farrell at this point, because it

21:50

doesn't feel like he's really giving a performance. He's just

21:53

kind of there and just kind of grubbling

21:55

his way through everything. And Tubbs

21:57

is even less of a character.

21:59

Tubbs is Jamie Foxx reacting to things

22:01

like nothing. There isn't any real

22:03

character trait to him

22:06

beyond the fact that he has this relationship with

22:08

Naomi Harris's character.

22:10

It is he's just there. He

22:12

says things. Sometimes they're cool. A

22:15

lot of times they're not. And when he takes his shirt

22:17

off, boy, he sure did get some personal training before

22:19

this movie. That's it. There's nothing

22:21

else there.

22:23

Yeah, like one of the, you

22:25

know, another one of the thoughts I

22:28

had that I tweeted when I was watching

22:30

this for the second time, because I watched I watched the directors

22:32

or watch the theatrical release originally.

22:35

And then I watched the directors cut because I wanted to

22:37

have the experience that,

22:39

you know, we could expect the average person that

22:42

like saw this originally had and see

22:45

where Michael Mann went with it.

22:47

Turns out it really didn't make a difference for me. But

22:50

it's incredible that Michael Mann managed to take two

22:53

of the most charismatic actors of this era

22:55

and put them in a movie with absolutely

22:58

nothing to do, no characterization

23:00

and next to no interaction with each other and

23:02

mouthfuls of jargon that reads faker than Star

23:05

Trek bullshit.

23:06

Yeah, 100 percent. But

23:08

like there's it's just it's it is it's it's

23:10

Jamie Foxx. Jamie Foxx, you know, Jamie

23:12

Foxx is upset about Naomi Harris having to do

23:15

a tense scene.

23:16

Yeah, that's like I don't get Jamie Foxx upset.

23:18

My girlfriend got kidnapped. I got Jamie Foxx is upset

23:20

about Naomi. Naomi Harris really

23:22

had to do a tense scene, y'all.

23:26

It's.

23:30

Yeah, I think it is. It

23:33

is weird how.

23:36

I don't know how much at odds with

23:38

the original conception of Miami Vice, this this

23:40

film ends up being and

23:43

it.

23:45

It does just kind of lose these characters

23:48

in that. It's probably the joylessness

23:50

that runs through it. But at

23:52

the same time, I do like.

23:55

I do kind of enjoy

23:57

the like. I don't

23:59

know. So Gothic,

24:02

like,

24:05

Gothic darkness of it, I

24:08

guess, in some ways, because like,

24:09

the moment they get this call from their

24:12

former informant, as

24:15

he is speeding down the highway and is begging

24:17

them like, take care of my family, like it, the

24:21

whole, the whole feeling of the night

24:23

shifts.

24:24

And we get yes, we do get our

24:26

first like,

24:27

double barrel shot of jargon. We

24:29

get Crockett calling into the

24:32

FBI command center. And

24:34

it is all just like,

24:35

loads of call your sack. I need

24:37

him at the, you know, it's, it's, it's

24:40

all stuff like that. We get

24:42

the, what is it, the line, it is,

24:44

it is 1137 o'clock. And

24:46

this is the hand we have been dealt like

24:50

vaguely like

24:51

cool guy, tier one operatorship,

24:53

but also completely nonsensical. Like what are,

24:56

you know, there's no, there's no poetry

24:59

to it. No, it is, it

25:01

is an attempt to kind of like characterize

25:04

these guys as elite

25:07

because they read the clock in a weird

25:09

way with like, I guess, military precision. It's

25:12

it's the kind of line that like David Mamet

25:14

at his worst would write.

25:16

And the thing is, this movie isn't even committed

25:18

enough to doing that kind of thing. It

25:20

just comes out in these little fits and starts

25:23

of, I'm going to say something that sounds

25:25

severe and cool, but it

25:27

just, it's not even committed to that idea

25:30

because it just kind of abandons it mostly for

25:32

the, like outside of a few scenes. Like

25:35

I, and I think that is a big part of my,

25:37

my problem with this movie is that it feels like

25:40

it has, it has no commitment to any

25:42

particular tone or thing

25:44

beyond just a vague sense

25:47

of what was cool in this era. No, it

25:49

has a, it has a commitment. It doesn't have, it does have

25:51

a tonal, it has an aesthetic commitment. And

25:53

that is the commitment to the

25:56

takedown sequences from 2003's Manhunt.

25:59

Sure. Yeah.

26:02

When I was watching this movie, all

26:05

I could keep thinking of was like, wow, did Michael

26:07

Mann play a shitload of manhunt? And

26:09

if so, why is Brian Cox not narrating

26:11

this?

26:15

So the other thing that

26:17

I would say, like, you know, we're going to get a full

26:19

load of what the tone a lot of the rest of this movie

26:21

is going to be from immediately.

26:24

You're going to get a lot of loads. There's

26:26

a lot of loads in this movie. No

26:29

loads will be refused.

26:31

Yep. Like, the moment

26:34

they puzzle out how

26:36

they're going to track down their informant,

26:38

Alonzo, we get the

26:40

time to get into our Ferrari and chase

26:43

him down on the street. And

26:45

so once again, it's like, yep, Miami Vice

26:48

is doing the Ferrari thing. But boy, was I

26:50

was I not expecting just the grim

26:53

panicky scene on the

26:55

shoulder as they run him down and

26:58

got who

27:00

is it here? John Hawks

27:03

is just frantically trying to explain

27:05

to them as he's trying to rush home to his

27:07

to his wife that they turned him. They

27:10

figured out that

27:10

he was working with the feds. They turned him. He

27:13

blew the whole operation. He's just trying to save

27:15

his wife. And we get a dizzying

27:18

array of cuts here, cross cuts

27:20

as everything unravels all at once.

27:23

We get the

27:25

creepy, I guess, manhunter esque stillness

27:28

of the Aryan Brotherhood dudes going

27:30

through Alonzo's house with his

27:32

wife down on the floor. You

27:35

know, and also similar to what happens

27:37

to.

27:39

Oh, gosh.

27:42

The original driver was supposed to be there in

27:45

heat.

27:45

Oh, Trejo. Yeah. Yeah.

27:49

You know, similar sort of moment of like what happens at

27:51

Trejo's house that, you know,

27:54

that

27:54

we don't see. But the sort of

27:56

stillness of the house is, you know,

27:58

tells us enough. And then we

28:00

get an incontically

28:03

violent

28:07

killing of these FBI

28:10

agents down at this this dockyard

28:12

as they're trying to do a

28:13

handoff. They're trying to do an

28:17

exchange of like cash and

28:19

drugs was more like a trial run to see if the relationship

28:21

is going to work but just

28:24

as the feds are about to get in their car, the

28:28

neo-nazi on the other side, that's

28:30

how long you've been a fad and they try to drive off. And

28:33

then we just see, I guess,

28:34

I guess Michael Mann really was like, I want to have a

28:37

Barrett 50 caliber sniper rifle scene

28:40

where we just like watch what that does to a car

28:42

and people. And so we get an

28:44

in the car slow motion

28:47

camera of these two FBI

28:49

agents getting riddled with bullets

28:52

and literally blown apart along with

28:54

huge pieces of the car as the 50 caliber

28:56

rounds tear them apart and arm goes like

28:59

pinwheeling across the

29:01

screen. And it's

29:03

impressive.

29:04

Which like no, like that is a Miami

29:06

Vice scene though. Like Miami Vice,

29:09

the TV show would have had dude

29:11

show up and just unload the car with M16s,

29:13

right? Yeah, they would have gotten

29:15

the shot of the guy exploding, but yes, you're

29:17

right. But like we would have the car that just gets

29:19

like, you know, like there's someone there with

29:21

the little squib board that's going like, and

29:24

like we see the car go pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, and we see,

29:26

you know, you know, like, you know, fake bodies

29:29

like shaking in the car kind of things.

29:32

But like, you know, and this is, so this is the update of that. This

29:34

is like, you know, okay, you know, in the past,

29:37

like, you know, now we do, we do the 50

29:39

caliber sniper rifle that

29:42

blows the car apart and we get the interior

29:44

shot of the bodies ripping apart too. Like,

29:46

okay, that is, that is, that's bringing

29:48

that into the, you know, the

29:50

21st century of Miami Vice.

29:55

And like, also the tone is off. Yeah.

29:58

Pardon. The

30:00

tone is also off though because like Miami Vice Typically

30:03

would still be celebratory of this and

30:05

like well I could go like fuck. Yeah

30:08

The the rest of the movie is telling

30:11

me that like, you know you going

30:13

fuck Yeah, but the 50 caliber sniper

30:15

rifle in this moment is wrong

30:18

Yeah Michael Mann's allowed

30:20

to like it, but you're not like yeah, like

30:22

seriously

30:24

Yeah, there there is there's there's

30:26

an element of disgust to a lot

30:29

of this like this is a movie that I think

30:31

is in a lot of ways about sort of it

30:33

finds a lot of the squalid in a

30:35

way that

30:36

Miami Vice would sort of pay lip service

30:39

to but also be

30:41

like pretty cool though right and

30:44

it was and here it still kind of is

30:46

like this the sequence is you know

30:49

It is memorable right

30:51

like they're just there are not many films where you're

30:53

put inside the car you watch the slow motion

30:55

like the entire thing turned into confetti

30:58

and dust as it's literally pulverized

31:00

by incoming fire and

31:03

then you get the

31:05

the moment Alonzo realizes

31:07

that his they killed his wife anyway

31:10

that he

31:11

you know betrayed this operation for nothing

31:14

Like before the film almost has a

31:16

chance to react he steps in front of a passing semi

31:18

and we get the cut to just

31:21

the red smear coming out from behind his rear wheels

31:23

and then before that even we can fully process that

31:26

we're cut again we're away and

31:29

as far as like

31:32

setting expectations for what's coming I think

31:34

this is actually very effective opening

31:36

because this this is how a lot

31:38

of the rest of this movie is going to feel it's going

31:40

to be like There's going to be classic

31:43

Miami Vice stuff happens but

31:45

it

31:46

it's last seconds all going to be tainted and

31:48

weird in some

31:50

way and I don't

31:53

know I

31:54

I still like at this point

31:57

it wasn't too long after this I originally

31:59

turned it off because I fundamentally, I was still

32:01

back on the question like, who's Alonzo? What happened to

32:03

my club scene? Are we going to do the traffickers?

32:07

Now I'm a little more willing to

32:09

just go along for

32:12

this ride and just sort of understand

32:14

that it's going to be this like

32:16

nightmare of undercover stuff

32:18

going wrong for a

32:21

lot of this movie. And we

32:23

get the, I think maybe one of

32:25

the things that makes me angriest in this movie honestly,

32:28

is that they have the meeting in the wake of

32:30

this entire debacle.

32:33

They have the meeting with the FBI

32:36

agent.

32:39

Kieran Hines. Yes.

32:42

It makes me very angry when Kieran Hines is this wasted.

32:45

Because he's Dracula.

32:48

And he looks like it.

32:49

Why is Kieran Hines not just like

32:51

secretly Dracula in every movie? Because every time

32:53

I see him on things. Do we ever see? Or the devil. One

32:56

of the two. Yeah, he's one of the two. Do

32:58

we ever see FBI agent Fujima

33:01

in the day? Fajima?

33:04

Fujima. That's

33:07

not an Irish name. No.

33:09

No.

33:11

No. But look, America's melting

33:13

pot and sometimes surprising

33:16

things. And sometimes it's Dracula is Irish

33:18

with the last name Fujima. And sometimes

33:20

Hugh Benny is Japanese. You just,

33:22

you don't know. You never know.

33:26

But all Kieran Hines is given

33:28

in this movie to do is like basically hand out the assignment. And like

33:30

an act of capacity for

33:32

human hair to soak up oil.

33:36

God, I'm with you. Kieran

33:37

Hines being wasted is not a thing that

33:39

should ever happen. Because

33:41

he's too, he's too willing to

33:44

go for whatever in just

33:45

about anything you give him. He's not

33:47

a boring

33:48

actor by trade. And he's boring here. Like

33:53

there's

33:54

other than him. Like, again, it feels

33:56

like a character that is meant to be

33:58

a semi antagonist.

33:59

in six episodes of a 24 episode run.

34:03

It's not a guy you can hang

34:05

significant scenes on in a movie because

34:07

he doesn't do anything. All he does

34:10

is just kind of squirm a little when

34:12

things aren't going his way. There's

34:14

nothing, again, there's nothing to this character

34:17

and he has no meat

34:19

to work with. It's so funny

34:21

because every actor in

34:23

this is like

34:28

fucking good. Like they're all just really,

34:30

you got incredible lineup for

34:33

this movie and then none

34:35

of them have anything to do.

34:38

No, like Naomi Harris and Justin

34:41

Theroux as like the minor cops, like that

34:43

could have been really interesting. Those are both really

34:45

interesting actors.

34:47

Naomi Harris gets a little bit to work with,

34:49

not a lot. And Justin Theroux might as well not

34:51

even be there. I didn't realize

34:53

that Justin Theroux was even there

34:55

for most of the like the first time I watched

34:57

the movie, I didn't realize that he was there at all. And then when

34:59

I saw his name in the credits, I was like, wait, what the fuck? So

35:02

the second time I watched it, I was like, holy shit.

35:04

He's that guy. You're not in here.

35:07

And then like, you know, I mean, like Gina

35:09

and Trudy,

35:10

why are we here? Like we

35:13

got to like fully competent actresses

35:16

of these roles and it's just like, why are you

35:18

here?

35:19

You both have like maybe two minutes

35:21

of lines tops. No,

35:24

and Naomi Harris makes

35:26

the most of them. And you come

35:28

away like I would have enjoyed a more

35:31

procedural version of this film that does involve

35:33

her character a bit more like when she

35:35

loses it on their CI that they're

35:37

working with as he's like starting to

35:39

transform away from them. And she

35:41

finally just loses her temper and is like, fuck

35:43

that. And then like Elizabeth Rodriguez

35:45

with the like, the fucking like rifle

35:48

aimed at the dude's head later, like the

35:50

two of them fucking kill the scenes

35:52

that they're given.

35:54

They're only given like two scenes. And

35:57

there's a lot of evidence and he like, honestly,

36:00

This is a weird part of this movie.

36:03

There's a lot of evidence that, you

36:05

know,

36:06

Crockett,

36:08

Tubbs,

36:11

you know, their boss, played

36:13

by Barry

36:16

Henley,

36:19

they all might suck a little bit,

36:21

right? Like a lot of things go

36:23

wrong here. Castillo, Castillo

36:25

is still their lieutenant, but like

36:28

it's

36:30

a comedy of errors at times. For as grim

36:32

as this movie is, there's a comedy

36:34

of errors quality to parts

36:37

of it that

36:39

do not afflict like

36:42

Trudy and Gina as much, but

36:44

appears to be across the board, like

36:47

incompetence or misjudgment running

36:49

through a lot of this. So,

36:52

you know, they realize what has, they

36:55

know who they were investigating, they know what's

36:57

gone wrong here.

36:58

They now have to take up the

37:02

blown investigation and that means getting

37:05

in with this cartel.

37:10

And the Jesus

37:13

Montoya's cartel.

37:15

And this is a part that, again, like

37:17

a little bit confusing in order to basically

37:20

fill, they have to create a vacancy in his organization.

37:23

So we get them

37:25

ripping off a bunch of smugglers

37:27

and blowing up their boats.

37:30

And the part that really stopped me is

37:32

the audacity of, to set

37:34

up the next stage of the operation,

37:36

they will then go back to try to present the

37:38

stolen goods as like a mark

37:40

of good faith, which struck me

37:43

as a wild swing to

37:45

try and land. But anyway, the credits they

37:47

can see in the organization,

37:49

they reach out and

37:51

they make contact with,

37:54

not with the Montoya

37:57

cartel, but really who they're

37:59

having. heading into Haiti to see

38:01

is Jose Eero.

38:04

And he is again, like the counter

38:07

intelligence chief for the cartel.

38:09

And I think this is one of the major points of this movie

38:12

is that

38:15

maybe one thing that it has concluded that

38:18

has changed since the drug

38:20

war of the eighties is that effectively

38:22

the cartels are state actors. They had,

38:24

like, we get a taste of this in

38:27

collateral where Bardem

38:30

has that same reoutlines all

38:32

the steps that the organization took

38:34

to generate this intelligence.

38:37

And here we get in

38:39

the form of Eero, we

38:42

get this idea of the cartel

38:45

kind of having its own

38:47

CIA

38:49

operating inside of it,

38:50

having its own like ability

38:52

to turn off cell networks at will, having

38:56

ability to like take control of infrastructure

38:59

and like basically dominate countries.

39:02

And

39:04

that is embodied in John Ortiz's Jose

39:06

Eero, who I

39:11

think Ortiz is an interesting actor.

39:13

And I think also the

39:15

bad guys, in fact, the bad guy in Fast and Furious.

39:19

In the before. In the before.

39:22

Totally forgot.

39:23

Yeah.

39:26

Really showing his range here.

39:29

There's a bit of like,

39:33

he gives off this vibe of like an honest

39:35

to God nerd

39:36

who has fallen so deeply

39:39

and then so good at a life of crime that he's become

39:41

like a terrifying kingpin in his

39:43

own right, but still has kind of a bookish

39:46

quality to him. So we get this nightclub

39:48

scene that is itself an adaptation of one

39:50

of the better scenes in Miami Vice. I think

39:52

there's a lot of this movie that is basically the

39:54

smuggler's blues

39:55

is, you know, a

39:57

lot of what they do from a lot of what they

39:59

do. to kind of set up the operation feels like it is

40:02

at least riffing on the stuff from Smuggler's

40:04

Blues. But

40:06

we get the classic like,

40:09

sit down across the table and make your pitch.

40:11

And it's a lot of,

40:14

a lot of alpha-talking nonsense

40:17

that we that we get. And it's very funny because,

40:21

you know, if there's I guess if there's a slightly tragic

40:23

quality to Jose Yero, it is

40:25

that fundamentally he's

40:27

not wrong. Like he's just like, he's just

40:30

gaslit through this entire movie. As

40:32

he sits there and he realizes like, he goes

40:35

to tubs, you know, okay, look, you seem all right.

40:38

I'm getting a bad vibe off your partner.

40:41

And cut to, cut to Colin

40:44

Farrell's Crockett. I too get a bad

40:46

vibe off this guy. It

40:49

is like, it is, it is

40:51

extremely bad vibes. And again, it's

40:53

hard to tell how much of that

40:55

is on the page versus Colin

40:57

Farrell literally being too drunk to remember he

41:00

filmed this movie.

41:01

But was something he has said like he

41:03

said that out loud after this film, I'm not

41:06

making a crack about his alcoholism. Like he literally

41:08

has said I've forgot large portions

41:10

of filming this film because I was drunk through most

41:12

of it. Yeah, but David Bowie said that about

41:14

like, you know,

41:16

let's dance. And that was still

41:18

a better album than this is a movie. David

41:21

Bowie is more talented artist than Colin Farrell. And I

41:23

say that is not a Colin Farrell hater. I'm just saying

41:25

I think there is a door scales we're working

41:27

on here. Okay, fair.

41:31

There but there is a what

41:34

is the way to put it like

41:37

in the TV series.

41:40

The vibe

41:42

like Crockett has is like he's all

41:44

good old boy Southern charm, etc.

41:47

Don Johnson has like a slightly

41:49

like winning scuzziness to him that

41:51

like is shot through every scene.

41:54

And yeah, like Colin

41:56

Farrell's approach to the character or

41:58

maybe it's informed by the circumstances.

41:59

he's making the film film under

42:03

really is just that this guy

42:05

is like.

42:07

Checked out, indifferent,

42:09

yeah, and completely impulse driven

42:12

like.

42:13

It's not a detail that appears anywhere in the movie,

42:15

and I'm not sure that it's even a character trait of this

42:17

particular Crockett, but it

42:20

does feel like the difference between divorced

42:22

in the 80s and divorced in 2006,

42:25

because Crockett was a icon

42:27

of divorced guy TV back

42:29

then, because back then it

42:32

wasn't a sad sack thing. It was

42:34

a pain point, a thing that made

42:36

him, you know, brooding and sensitive

42:38

while he went out and did his cool guy shit. Whereas

42:41

by 2006, most divorced guys were

42:43

just incredibly sad.

42:45

And 80s, 80s Colin Farrell took

42:49

80s, 80s Crockett took

42:51

care of his boat.

42:53

Yes. Mm hmm. Early

42:55

odds, Crockett. No,

42:58

no. The

43:01

last time he emptied the chemical toilet on

43:03

that thing. Oh my God.

43:06

That boat needs to sink immediately. You

43:09

need to get a new boat. He's just found

43:11

in their dead half eaten by Gator. But

43:13

also we need to, we need to take

43:16

a moment for it's not fair.

43:19

Like look, Colin Farrell struggles with an American

43:21

accent at the best of times.

43:25

It is not fair to put whatever accent

43:27

they tried to tell him to do for this

43:30

movie on Colin Farrell.

43:31

I don't know what it is. I can't identify

43:34

it.

43:35

I remember, I remember one time I was

43:37

in a bar in Scotland

43:39

and I had met, you know, this, there was an actor

43:42

there and he was talking about how, you know,

43:44

uh, across all of

43:46

the UK actors, you

43:48

know, no matter where they were from, they were all

43:51

proficient in like 5,000 different

43:54

accents because you had, you had to know

43:57

all of the regional accents from like,

43:59

you know,

43:59

from like the bottom of Ireland to the top

44:02

of Ireland to the bottom of the UK to the top of the UK.

44:04

You had to know so many different regional

44:06

accents perfectly. And so

44:09

I believe in my heart that Colin Farrell actually

44:11

has mastered those. And he simply

44:13

did not have room for an American accent

44:16

ever.

44:16

Yeah.

44:17

And he was unwilling to give

44:20

up, you know, a specific

44:23

like Welsh regionalism. That might cost you a Martin McDonough

44:25

role. Yeah. Yeah. You

44:27

can't have that. He wasn't going to give up any

44:30

one of those. No. The smallest

44:32

little like neighborhood accent.

44:35

He was not going to give that up for an American

44:37

accent ever. Hang on.

44:38

It might also be brilliant

44:41

smoke screening around Gong

44:43

Lee's Isabella.

44:44

Like this might be- We do need to

44:46

talk about that at some point. Maybe it is an early decision

44:49

to be like, you know what? Everyone's got

44:51

to sound weird in this movie. Jamie

44:53

Foxx won't talk.

44:55

Well,

44:57

Jamie Foxx, you know, there are parts genuinely,

45:01

I'm not clear

45:03

what movie he is in. But like, I don't know.

45:07

There's sort of gestures at, you know, maybe

45:10

a movie that divides the load a little more equally. Like

45:13

we do have the scene with him and Trudy, for instance,

45:15

laying out the relationship. And we get

45:17

the, you know, both of those, like

45:21

the gag about him pretending he prematurely

45:23

ejaculated.

45:24

And

45:27

it's just where

45:27

like they start having sex immediately. He's like, ah, great. And

45:31

there's that like long pause. And there's, I'm just fucking

45:34

with you. It is, is this the only like funny sex scene in Michael

45:37

man's career? Is

45:41

this the only

45:43

time he's ever found like humor? I mean,

45:45

I think it's like, Well,

45:48

he doesn't find,

45:50

he doesn't find use for that humor anywhere else in this movie because

45:52

you get his greatest hits collection

45:54

of things. Michael man, things

45:56

are hot, which is one fucking in the shower into having.

46:00

having weirdly athletic girl on top,

46:02

but like arms out, like

46:04

very, very posed sex.

46:08

But yes, that one little bit. With a poorly chosen

46:10

soundtrack. Yes, but that one little bit,

46:12

you're right. That is 100% the only time Michael

46:14

Mann has even like indicated that maybe

46:16

sex could be funny.

46:18

Yeah. I just also want to say it's really

46:20

unfair to all of these actors

46:23

to be filmed on the Thompson

46:25

Viper film stream camera. Um,

46:28

like in such exquisite close

46:31

up, because also Michael Mann really

46:33

likes to zoom the fuck in on

46:36

body parts when

46:38

he's like filming his sex scene. So I guess

46:40

he doesn't have to show the actual like mechanics

46:43

or arrangement of sexual postures

46:45

that much, but like, you

46:48

know, damn way to throw

46:50

Naomi Campbell and Jamie Foxx's skin

46:53

under the bus in an era before

46:55

we really got into the digital

46:58

body paint.

46:59

Yeah. Just mean.

47:02

I'm just saying. Fair.

47:05

The, um, the, the way he shoots this

47:08

whole movie in fact,

47:11

I

47:13

like everything's

47:14

a little too close is how a bunch

47:16

of it feels like he is leaning.

47:19

I would, I thought collateral might've

47:21

been,

47:23

you would think collateral would be like maybe the outer extent

47:25

of, of how documentary

47:27

style he wants a movie to feel. And

47:30

this is actually significantly more so. No, it's

47:33

really weird. Cause like, you know, and I love,

47:35

I love a tight shot. I love

47:37

me, you know, first of all, I, you

47:39

know, like, I don't like widescreen four by three

47:41

is the ideal format. Well really six by six,

47:44

but you're talking photography, but four by three for

47:46

like film and movies is the ideal for me. And

47:48

I really, you know, I love an 85 millimeter

47:51

lens, you know, in the, like, you

47:53

know, in a room that's not even 10 feet across,

47:56

like get up in that shit. But

47:58

like Michael man is just. Like

48:00

he's got, oh God, who was up his

48:02

number for this? It's

48:05

the same DP from collateral. Yeah,

48:07

Dion Bebe.

48:10

He is so,

48:12

like every shot is so tight.

48:14

It's wild, except for like, you know,

48:16

when we want to get the super 35 high speed way

48:20

the fuck out shots.

48:23

But like so much of this is- He never wants that camera on the stable

48:26

platform. Like we are constantly

48:28

like moving over people's shoulders,

48:30

like, you know, examining things. And

48:33

I actually like it quite a bit. I think it

48:36

contributes to the film's like overall unsettled

48:39

sense of perpetual disorientation. Right,

48:41

and exactly. And for that reason, I think it actually,

48:44

like that's one of the things that I think

48:46

updating, you know, if

48:49

we are to think of this film as a commentary

48:51

on

48:52

Miami Vice from the 80s,

48:55

as Miami Vice from the odds, like, you know, we're 20

48:57

years into the future and what has changed and

49:00

having that incredibly unstable,

49:03

like, you know, just like,

49:06

just rickety camera.

49:08

I think that is the correct, that

49:11

is the update because that's what happened. You

49:13

know, we went from everything being

49:15

a dolly shot to put this camera

49:17

on the shakiest motherfucker you can find.

49:21

And I think Michael

49:23

Mann, like that is a correct adjustment

49:27

for this film. It's

49:29

just.

49:30

Well, I think maybe you'd also say like in

49:32

places like the TV show, you

49:36

can sort of project yourself into these frames,

49:38

like the characters are often posed in these ways

49:41

of like cutting iconic figures,

49:43

you know, within the frame, having

49:45

the slow motion moment or sort

49:48

of the, you know, the perfectly composed

49:51

moment of like brooding

49:54

or something. You can sort of project yourself

49:56

into it. And I think like one thing is the

49:58

next step this movie takes is.

49:59

No, we're actually going to put you like

50:02

in their shoes as best we can

50:04

and you were going to be constantly like,

50:06

you know a

50:07

bit in a panic trying to

50:10

Work out what it what

50:12

is happening? What is it that surrounds you? And

50:15

that is something the movie continually denies you

50:17

to some extent is a good

50:20

sense of where you stand and Where

50:23

the action is because it's constantly Shifting

50:25

and I think it's really funny that you did like a good sense

50:28

of where you stand because I was just

50:30

thinking like you know, like while you it

50:32

was like my thought my ad was I

50:35

feel like you know, This is the movie where

50:37

Michael Mann has like been progressively

50:40

getting like, you know Relying less

50:41

and less on blocking scenes. Yes,

50:44

and that like this is the movie where Michael Mann was

50:46

just like let's not block anything

50:48

Fuck blocking blockings for

50:50

stages That's

50:53

what he had to no one knows where to stand literally So

51:00

But we also so we

51:02

get that basically I'm holding a thermal detonator moment with Jose

51:04

Yero where he's like I don't trust you Maybe I'll dump you both and we get

51:06

the the Crockett they reveal her they're holding grenades

51:09

and She

51:11

gives the like they'll be talking about this for years, man.

51:13

They're gonna come in here and be like, what's

51:15

that? Jackson Pollock on the wall. No, I'm not gonna do

51:18

that Jackson Pollock

51:20

on the wall. No, that's the that's the

51:22

last remains of Jose Yero It's

51:25

good shit, but this is where Isabella

51:28

enters the story as a figure from

51:30

the periphery

51:31

she

51:33

Overcomes their misgivings

51:35

green lights the operation and

51:38

I think it is that night they're told to go

51:40

back and wait in their towel and this is that night

51:42

that they are sort of convoyed

51:45

to the

51:47

Airport I guess to meet

51:49

for the first and only time Jesus

51:51

Montoya

51:53

and Like

52:00

I think it's a very cool scene. I think

52:02

this is the one scene for me that I'm like, this

52:05

actually feels kind of fucking rad

52:07

and scary in a way that they want it to

52:09

feel.

52:11

Yeah, you know, they're plunged into

52:13

this night,

52:14

like their cell phones go dead, but even

52:16

feels like they're just moved

52:18

outside like

52:20

any trace of the light or the warmth of

52:22

the city. And they are just like out

52:24

in the darkness

52:25

and they are taken

52:28

to

52:29

meet the wizard effectively. They

52:31

see that- It has the same feel

52:33

of like every, you know, like Dracula

52:36

and Frankenstein movie where the villagers

52:38

at a certain hour all completely disappear

52:41

from the streets. And this

52:43

makes me flashback. So this feels

52:45

like,

52:46

I think this is how he wanted Calderon

52:48

to feel in the TV show. Yes.

52:52

Luis Tossar's like Jesus

52:54

Montoya. Honestly,

52:57

he might be out bardoming Bartim in

53:00

this scene as

53:02

he basically gives them the like, I'm going

53:04

to tell you this once. This is the only time we will meet. And

53:07

just some of the lines, like there

53:09

are little flashes of, you know, poetry

53:11

here. To me, it

53:13

sounds like Spanish translated into English as

53:17

he is talking to him. He says, you know,

53:19

if you do what you say and you don't let me down, you'll

53:22

prosper beyond your wildest dreams.

53:25

I extend my best wishes

53:28

to you and your families, which is both

53:30

an implicit threat, but also like he's

53:32

courtly in a weird way, but like

53:34

utterly terrifying.

53:36

Like he's a one note character, but it is

53:38

the scariest note he could be playing. Like

53:40

I think it is absolutely,

53:43

honestly, one of the movies failings. I mean, I

53:45

don't think that we needed a huge dose

53:48

of him, but

53:49

the fact that he sort of becomes a non-factor

53:52

in the story once the

53:54

plot kind of, you know, kind of starts winding

53:56

to its conclusion. It's not that

53:58

I think they had to kill him at the end.

53:59

for it to be a successful movie.

54:02

But I think the fact that it just becomes a hero

54:04

show and then we kind of forget about the really

54:07

fucking scary guy that showed up

54:09

earlier

54:09

is a bummer. Well, it's it's so weird

54:12

because so much of this movie

54:15

is like,

54:16

you know, like I did

54:18

my joke about John Ortiz. Is it like he

54:21

heard the that like the the the

54:23

lug was meeting and he thought it was Latino instead

54:25

of Linux. But he didn't matter

54:27

anyway, because he was like, you know, he was so

54:29

hyped to go to the like the Latino

54:32

Linux user group

54:33

like that. He's like the secret mastermind

54:36

villain behind all this. But we never get like the

54:38

tug of war because he's like,

54:42

this is the thing. This movie

54:45

needed to be about Gina and Trudy. And

54:47

like it needed to be about like, you know, like

54:51

heroes love his

54:53

his homoerotic loves for

54:58

months. But we never we never

55:00

get that. It doesn't have that gear. We

55:02

never get we never get the homoerotic

55:05

love nor do we get the I'm

55:07

going to usurp him and take his thing over

55:09

because I am secretly Linux

55:11

on the desktop 2020 like, you know, these

55:15

spreadsheets are how is the future and

55:18

I control them. We never. Yeah, we

55:20

never get either of those. So like we get

55:22

euro, we get two unsatisfying

55:25

villains. We get the kind of like,

55:27

you know, we get the albucho

55:30

who never has the upper, you know, the opportunity

55:32

to act

55:34

like he's never calling hits. He's

55:36

never doing anything. He's not even shown to be

55:38

like still while murder is happening

55:40

around him. But like then we also

55:42

get like the euro who like is doing all this

55:45

action. But he's just too much of a

55:47

nerd to like ever. He was like in

55:49

love with Montoya to like ever do

55:51

anything

55:53

that like isn't like, you know, in

55:55

service of this guy.

55:58

But the movie can acknowledge that he's doing. all

56:00

this in service of this man that he loves

56:02

and has worshiped for at like

56:05

the same time as like, you know, he's also not usurping

56:07

him. So it's like, what, what are we, what is the relationship

56:09

even? What

56:10

is, what is going on here? Do something.

56:12

The movie will do something for God's sake.

56:16

Yeah. The, um, there's

56:18

a version of this movie that like does like lean

56:20

on these court politics. There's

56:22

a movie that's so fucking gay in

56:25

this and it rules.

56:27

Yeah. Uh,

56:31

the other problem I think is that, so

56:33

their whole scheme have they launched next with

56:35

the,

56:36

the first run, we get some great,

56:39

like, you know, them flying in and the cover

56:41

of the two, uh, the other aircraft, like it's

56:43

great, you know, just planes are cool. Some

56:45

gorgeous landscapes as they, as they fly

56:47

out of Columbia. It's it's good

56:49

stuff, but

56:51

it's upon landing. They claim like somebody tried

56:53

to rip us off and this is where they do the thing where

56:55

it's like

56:56

the shit that they ripped off the other smugglers,

56:59

they now present, uh, as

57:01

something they found.

57:03

And they claim that they came under attack

57:06

themselves and they present this

57:08

as a way to back foot Yarrow.

57:11

But to me, like it just

57:13

for an organization that's paranoid the

57:16

minute on the first run, this meant this

57:18

much weird shit happens. These

57:20

guys are dead. Oh yeah. Oh God. Yeah.

57:24

Oh yeah. Dead.

57:25

Like that's, that's a thing you introduce after

57:27

you've got a few runs under your belt and you

57:29

really want to establish like, okay, we're

57:32

good now. First time that

57:34

is every goddamn red flag you can imagine.

57:37

And, and Yarrow is there being like, are

57:40

you kidding me? Like, no, no, we're not.

57:43

You just came up with all this and you don't

57:45

even want us to pay a finder's fee. You're just gifting

57:48

it to us. Is a gesture of good will. No, this is bullshit.

57:50

Like I'm calling time on this. Yeah.

57:53

And the minute the movie can't let him do that, the

57:55

minute Isabella

57:57

weighs in and is like, no, like.

57:59

it's all good, like we'll continue

58:02

as planned. And

58:05

then walks off down toward her boat

58:07

and Crockett

58:09

stands up and goes after and

58:12

is like, I'm a fiend for Mojito's. And

58:14

she's like, I'm going to throw my life away for

58:16

this man. For this, I am going

58:18

to risk it all for this dirtbag. The minute

58:20

all that happens, and by the way,

58:22

I like some of what's coming. I like the romanticism

58:25

of parts of this movie, but I think

58:28

the casualty of it is

58:31

Garo, despite the fact that he will end up being

58:33

the primary antagonist here and will end up

58:35

being the one who like green lights the

58:39

attack on the operation,

58:42

he no longer feels like a worthy adversary

58:44

or a strong one because he is so neutered

58:47

in this sequence by having his

58:50

obviously well-founded misgivings once

58:52

again, just stepped on and overruled

58:56

for no apparent good reason. No. Yeah.

58:59

And this is,

59:00

go ahead, Alex. I was going to say, it's

59:02

because Isabella holds this outsized

59:04

influence over everything. And

59:07

girls will say things like, I know a place

59:10

and it's literally Cuba.

59:13

So this

59:15

is going to be a weird tangent, but one

59:17

of the things this made me think of,

59:19

like Isabella made me think of was

59:22

during the, when Master

59:24

and Commander was being released,

59:27

the trailers always had this

59:30

sequence that like included,

59:32

like, you know, it was like, you know, like the adventure, the,

59:34

the, the, the history, blah, blah, blah. And then

59:36

it said the romance and it showed

59:39

the clip of like the one, like,

59:41

you know, Brazilian. No, the girl

59:43

who shows up with the merchants. Yeah.

59:45

Yeah. But the trailers all were like the

59:47

romance. And I was just like, oh,

59:49

okay. I don't remember that from any of the

59:51

novels, but sure.

59:52

And so like, when I went to see the movie and it

59:54

was just like, Oh no, this is just a bitch. He's just like

59:56

in a boat, just being like, Thigh, smile, thanks.

59:59

It's been great trading with you.

59:59

Bye. I'm a pretty indigenous

1:00:02

Brazilian girl. Peace out. But

1:00:05

like...

1:00:07

Miami Vice is the movie that

1:00:09

saw that it was betrayed by

1:00:11

the lack of romance in Master

1:00:13

and Commander. And it was like,

1:00:16

we're gonna make good on that because

1:00:18

we're gonna have this random

1:00:20

bitch show up that is going to put

1:00:23

aside all good reason...

1:00:27

to like hook up with this shitty,

1:00:30

greasy white guy who you could

1:00:32

find anywhere. And that's the thing. Tubbs

1:00:34

is never... Crockett is never

1:00:37

like a sexy dude

1:00:39

in front of her. He never does anything cool.

1:00:42

He never says anything cool. Like

1:00:44

the best thing we got is the grenade scene.

1:00:46

But honestly, Jamie Foxx is the fuckable

1:00:49

character in that scene. Oh, yeah. And in

1:00:51

general in this movie. But then... But he's

1:00:53

wifed up.

1:00:55

She doesn't know that.

1:00:59

Or maybe she does. Maybe she was the one who was like send yellow

1:01:01

roses.

1:01:03

God, that scene pisses me off. I'll get to

1:01:05

that when we get to that. But

1:01:08

like... The scene where they send true to the roses? Oh,

1:01:10

I'm so mad about that scene. That scene pisses me off

1:01:13

more than anything. Rob,

1:01:16

you get $500 of yellow fucking roses out

1:01:19

of fucking nowhere. And you don't

1:01:22

notice one, that there's a card.

1:01:24

Two, that something's been written on the fucking

1:01:27

card. That's true. No, this is

1:01:29

the most insane fucking scene I have

1:01:31

ever seen in a movie. The fact that

1:01:33

Trudy

1:01:35

is going to look at those roses and be like, Oh

1:01:38

my God, I love these fucking flowers. First of all, who

1:01:40

the fuck sends yellow roses? Yellow

1:01:43

is like the friendship rose. It's

1:01:45

like the I love you chased rose

1:01:47

that you send to like someone that you don't want to

1:01:49

send fucking callo lilies to because no one's

1:01:51

died.

1:01:52

It's like, I'm sorry about your kid. They're the ones

1:01:55

who send a hero because you are trying

1:01:57

to friend zone him.

1:01:58

Like seriously, they are.

1:01:59

First of all, if the guy that is

1:02:02

banging you, the guy that is ejaculating inside

1:02:04

of you sends you yellow roses, there is a sign.

1:02:07

He is gay and he is fucking Jose

1:02:09

Yero.

1:02:11

But also read the fucking card,

1:02:14

you dumb bitch. Are you fucking kidding

1:02:16

me? She didn't read the card. She

1:02:18

has to be yelled at the way I'm yelling

1:02:20

now into my microphone and like,

1:02:23

that like to read the card.

1:02:25

Are you kidding me? This is the

1:02:27

most- You sent me these roses and it's like,

1:02:30

that's a lot of roses. I was ready to

1:02:32

stop watching the movie at this scene

1:02:34

and just be like, Rob, I'm sorry. This

1:02:37

movie got too fucking stupid.

1:02:39

I can't watch this anymore.

1:02:43

That's fair, but it does set up a diner scene.

1:02:45

So who's to say if it's good or not?

1:02:49

It's not a great diner scene. No, it's not. It's not a

1:02:51

great diner scene. It's a bad diner scene. It's a

1:02:53

diner scene, but it is not a great one. That

1:02:55

is true. They basically decided to stick with the

1:02:57

plan and go ahead with it. You're

1:02:59

right that, yeah, it's, look, there's this,

1:03:02

I like this movie. There's parts,

1:03:04

I don't think I can argue for it. It's like

1:03:06

one of the greater man works.

1:03:09

I think the reappraisal can go

1:03:11

too far, but

1:03:13

we do have moments like,

1:03:16

I am so divided about this scene

1:03:18

with Isabella and Sonny because

1:03:21

on the one hand, you were leaning into the

1:03:23

preposterousness of like this Sonny

1:03:26

Crockett being this

1:03:28

like

1:03:29

icon and just like absolute

1:03:31

catnip to a woman like Isabella. We

1:03:34

are running headlong into the fact that Gong

1:03:36

Li was cast knowing

1:03:38

that she would have to learn her lines phonetically

1:03:41

because she does not speak English. And so- Okay,

1:03:44

but like that's what we did with Antonio

1:03:46

Banderas in interview with the vampire. So

1:03:48

that doesn't really hold water for

1:03:50

me. Cause that was like,

1:03:51

no human being has been sexier on

1:03:53

screen than Antonio Banderas

1:03:56

doing the candle thing with his fingers.

1:03:58

Yeah.

1:04:00

You're not wrong. Sorry that you

1:04:02

did. You have to work really hard to top

1:04:05

that. So I understand that, like, whatever.

1:04:07

If you have to learn the lines phonetically fine. Well,

1:04:12

it doesn't bother me that much in terms

1:04:14

of I think I don't think Gung Lee is a problem

1:04:16

in this movie that much. I

1:04:19

think there's she's not the problem. No.

1:04:23

But I will say some

1:04:25

of these scenes do

1:04:27

run up against the combination

1:04:31

of

1:04:31

like her slightly flat line readings

1:04:34

and then Colin Farrell's overall flatness

1:04:37

through through a lot of this. We get

1:04:39

the scene on the boat where they sort of feel each other

1:04:41

out. And, you know, she makes clear that

1:04:43

she's her she's her own woman. She's a she's a girl

1:04:45

boss. They know we didn't have this

1:04:47

word back in 2006. But this is basically

1:04:50

her pitch is like pretty much what she is. I'm a girl boss

1:04:53

for for the cartel.

1:04:56

And like, yeah, there's

1:04:58

just a lot like there's a lot of things about this that are like

1:05:00

kind of the weakest points of the film and

1:05:03

yet also, fuck me. I love it. I

1:05:05

love I love the boat. It's OK.

1:05:08

It's the one the boat and

1:05:10

Cuba, the whole like 10 to 12

1:05:12

minute sequence that goes through all of this.

1:05:16

It is a miss for me, but

1:05:18

it's a big swing in a way that I feel

1:05:20

like a lot of this movie is not. It is trying

1:05:22

for some wild shit to really

1:05:25

kind of to emphasize the devil may

1:05:27

care aspect of both Crockett's personality

1:05:30

and sort of just the way that he approaches

1:05:32

everything.

1:05:34

But it

1:05:35

it's not good necessarily

1:05:38

like there is no real chemistry

1:05:41

between Farrell and Gong Li. And

1:05:43

I've seen some people say that like Gong Li is hard to actually

1:05:45

understand this movie, watching it this time

1:05:48

as someone who is very sensitive to the horrors

1:05:50

of current audio mixing and movies. I

1:05:53

didn't have any trouble understanding her. The

1:05:55

problem with her performance is that it's

1:05:57

just a little uncanny. She's emphasizing.

1:06:00

words in not a way that a

1:06:03

person who speaks a Western dialect

1:06:05

would. Her emphasis sometimes feels very

1:06:07

Chinese in the way that she

1:06:10

hits certain syllables of words.

1:06:12

And it just doesn't feel like a conversation

1:06:15

is happening.

1:06:16

And that is where I think it starts to fall apart.

1:06:19

And even when they get to the sexy times, it

1:06:22

like Gong Li is a very magnetic actress

1:06:24

and Colin Farrell can be, but they

1:06:26

are repelling one another when they start

1:06:28

actually getting together. There is nothing there.

1:06:31

And it is so nothing that it is actually

1:06:33

pushing them away. Well, it's, it's

1:06:36

so funny cause Gong Li speaks

1:06:38

English in this movie, like someone who

1:06:40

was speaks English as a third language, which

1:06:43

is what Godly fucking character is.

1:06:45

Yeah. Gong Li's character is like, you know what?

1:06:48

She grew up, she's Chinese and she grew

1:06:50

up in Havana. A dislocated child of

1:06:52

multiple communist revolutions. Like, yeah,

1:06:54

like her mother was killed in Africa

1:06:56

when she was there, serving there as a translator. Yeah.

1:06:59

Like what? Like, you know,

1:07:01

that's, this is what she should sound like.

1:07:04

This is what someone is speaking English

1:07:06

as a third language would sound fucking

1:07:09

like, I don't know why anyone like this is a deal,

1:07:11

but I remember when Googling it and it was like a big

1:07:13

fucking deal for people.

1:07:16

No, Colin Farrell's like, no, Jamie

1:07:18

Foxx is like weird, like Creole

1:07:21

accent is like more of a fucking deal. Like

1:07:23

Gong Li is perfectly fine. Like

1:07:26

Colin Farrell is definitely more off putting. I think

1:07:28

then Gong Li is in this movie. Like Gong Li at least

1:07:30

feels like if she isn't nailing the line

1:07:32

deliveries, she at least

1:07:34

feels like she understands the thrust of the character

1:07:37

and is trying to shape it into something

1:07:39

with the toolset that she has. The thing is, I

1:07:41

think Gong Li does nail the line delivery.

1:07:43

They think the lines are just stupid.

1:07:46

They're bad lines. That is absolutely true.

1:07:49

Yeah, I think, um, well,

1:07:52

I think the lines are not amazing.

1:07:55

I think the, the weird thing is I

1:07:57

think like the.

1:08:00

as is often the case for a man movie. The sex

1:08:02

scene is weak. I also

1:08:04

think it's very funny that they get to Cuba,

1:08:07

and to me, the vibe is very much

1:08:09

like, yeah,

1:08:12

I too like Buena Vista Social Club,

1:08:15

and that's kind of the, we're gonna go

1:08:18

clubbing, bam, just put

1:08:20

that album on. And

1:08:22

that's Cuba, baby. To

1:08:25

me, the film begins to regain a lot of ground.

1:08:29

I do love the shot of, as they pull away from the boat,

1:08:31

and the perfectly blue waters, and the soundtrack coming

1:08:33

up. I love all that stuff, but to

1:08:35

me, things begin to come together a bit

1:08:37

better as they spend a very

1:08:40

domestic quiet day,

1:08:41

as they fill each other in

1:08:43

on their life stories. Her's true,

1:08:46

his

1:08:47

partially fabricated, or at least heavily

1:08:50

alighted around the fact that he's a cop.

1:08:53

But that stuff I find a bit more,

1:08:57

it's honestly in those quiet moments that

1:08:59

I begin to find them far more convincing as

1:09:02

people who are falling in love, as

1:09:04

they sort of settle into, like, let me tell

1:09:06

you more about my life, like away from all this.

1:09:09

That stuff, I think,

1:09:11

sells this a bit better.

1:09:15

The problem is that I think maybe the pace

1:09:18

at which all this unfolds needs

1:09:20

to sell you on this idea of there being like a great,

1:09:22

almost magnetic, romantic attraction between

1:09:24

them, that, yeah, like to your

1:09:26

point about them, repelling each other, that

1:09:28

is kind of how it feels in some

1:09:30

of those scenes. It feels,

1:09:33

sorry, go ahead.

1:09:34

Oh, I was gonna say, this reminds

1:09:36

me of like,

1:09:38

the two of them remind me of the

1:09:40

Anakin and Padme. Yes,

1:09:43

yes. In the late country, on Da

1:09:45

Bu,

1:09:46

like I keep, I'm like,

1:09:48

okay, you need to convince

1:09:51

me that the two of them have fallen absolutely

1:09:54

ridiculously Romeo and Juliet

1:09:57

after one night in love with one another.

1:09:59

And the movie can't do that.

1:10:02

No.

1:10:02

And I don't know quite as hard as like Natalie

1:10:05

Portman's visible this next. No,

1:10:07

no. Or at least

1:10:10

like,

1:10:10

you know, it is clear that Colin

1:10:13

Farrell would bang the shit out of Gong Lee if

1:10:15

given the chance. And that like, Cong Lee would

1:10:17

probably like, you know, take him up on that. She

1:10:19

might slum it one night. Sure. Yeah. Like

1:10:22

we all like, you know, it's just like, okay, I've never

1:10:24

slept with an Irish guy before. And

1:10:26

as details in like 2003, you know,

1:10:28

you know, the

1:10:33

there was an issue of details that I bought in 2000, like

1:10:35

I think it was like 2003, 2002, 2003. But

1:10:38

it was like Colin Farrell will sleep

1:10:40

with you.

1:10:42

And it just said Colin Farrell

1:10:44

and like it's a very tight crotch shot

1:10:46

on the cover. And I bought it for

1:10:48

a friend. I genuinely bought it

1:10:50

for a friend. But there was an anecdote in it about Colin

1:10:53

Farrell puts a potted plant in his crotch

1:10:56

and talks about how this

1:10:58

is the difference between Dublin girls and

1:11:00

Irish girls. And he puts the potted

1:11:02

plant in his crotch and he's like, this is Irish girls.

1:11:05

And then he puts a little like plucks a leaf off

1:11:07

and puts it in his crotch and he's like, this is Hollywood girls.

1:11:12

Covering his mouth right now is the most beautiful

1:11:14

thing I've ever seen. I'm just I'm trying to I'm just

1:11:16

rock tumbling that one around in my brain a little bit.

1:11:20

How did I see are not tackled into the

1:11:22

ground? It was a different

1:11:24

time. They were at a bar drinking

1:11:26

and he was drinking with a details reporter for fuck

1:11:29

sake in 2002. Oh my God. I'm

1:11:31

sure the PR person is like, oh, this is gold, baby.

1:11:34

Oh, yeah. No, I mean, everyone I

1:11:36

showed, you know, everyone that read this article was just like Colin

1:11:38

Farrell is great. He can do no wrong. Yeah, I was that

1:11:41

way for fuck's sake. But

1:11:42

like Colin Gangli would like,

1:11:44

you know, like OK, we'll definitely sleep with Colin Farrell. I

1:11:46

don't remember where I was going with this anymore. Fuck.

1:11:49

Well, I think look once once

1:11:51

we got lost in his crotch with the

1:11:53

pot of plant. Yeah, where do you go from

1:11:55

there? It was hard to what bar in the

1:11:57

night at the early odds in L.A.

1:11:59

Has a body plan on the table. Oh,

1:12:02

I can see it, though. I can see it like

1:12:04

it. Like it's a hangover, a hangover

1:12:07

of 90s decor. I think. Yes, definitely.

1:12:09

Like they are not in a trendy bar. They're in a quiet

1:12:12

bar. Yeah. So

1:12:14

but there is a scene in my advice, the TV

1:12:16

series that kind of echoes this, which

1:12:19

is the tubs and the cartel

1:12:21

guy's daughter. Yes. Falling in love

1:12:24

over a five minute period in that two

1:12:26

parter. And I feel like this is almost

1:12:28

like a response that I've been like, OK, you

1:12:30

thought that was unbelievable. Check this shit out.

1:12:34

Yeah, because this woman is like the COO

1:12:36

of like the drug of cartel incorporated.

1:12:40

I swear to God, for the longest time, I thought Gong

1:12:42

Lee was in on him being a cop and that that

1:12:44

was going to be the real that she secretly

1:12:47

all along

1:12:48

was just looking for her out that

1:12:50

she had no way out of this cartel because she was kind

1:12:53

of like wifed up on Montoya.

1:12:56

And she was like, well, I'm not actually married, but

1:12:58

like I'm kind of wifed up on this like, you

1:13:00

know, drug dealer who runs all

1:13:03

of the fucking drugs and is the scariest

1:13:05

motherfucker on earth, even though Kieran

1:13:07

Hines is actually a Dracula and should be scarier.

1:13:10

But it should have probably cast him as the drug dealer,

1:13:12

even though he's Irish. But whatever. Who does that matter? He's

1:13:14

Fujima. But

1:13:16

like

1:13:17

I really thought that like she

1:13:21

was going to be in on this all the time. Like

1:13:23

some kind of twist. Like, yeah, like

1:13:25

she knew somehow because

1:13:27

there's no reason to just what

1:13:30

a fuck Colin Farrell when you're responsible

1:13:32

for like a multi million

1:13:34

dollar drug enterprise or go along

1:13:36

with his increase. Like, again, one

1:13:38

day ago, he's like, hey, found all those drugs that mysteriously

1:13:41

stolen last week

1:13:42

today.

1:13:44

Like after you guys have made out in the coffee

1:13:46

shop. So what if you cut me in

1:13:48

as a full percentage partner on

1:13:50

your entire operation and make all

1:13:53

your operations in South Florida? Run through

1:13:55

us, by the way, we'll guarantee

1:13:57

your risk. These are insane terms.

1:14:00

How how about it and

1:14:02

she's like All right,

1:14:04

like we can we make it back my boss Yeah

1:14:08

That

1:14:09

again, just like one red flag

1:14:11

after another even aside from me like is

1:14:13

this guy cop or not? Can he be trusted? You

1:14:16

know

1:14:17

even setting that aside

1:14:20

the guy comes across as like

1:14:22

wildly grotesquely ambitious to

1:14:25

like for for Not

1:14:28

not for no good reason but in

1:14:30

ways that just do not Suggest

1:14:34

a stable business partner or never get us

1:14:36

the motherfucker this hungry. Are you know me? No

1:14:38

in ways that feel very small time for

1:14:40

an organization like this. Yeah

1:14:43

Right. He offers things that sound

1:14:45

big-time like well guarantee your risk But

1:14:47

like you can't that's the nature of this business

1:14:50

You can't make promises like that like basically

1:14:52

you are saying I'm going to stick my head

1:14:54

in this lion's mouth and eventually it's going to kill

1:14:56

me because I couldn't couldn't follow

1:14:59

through on this but

1:15:01

She

1:15:02

goes along with with all of this.

1:15:05

She takes it back to Montoya

1:15:08

I think

1:15:09

The only line I find I found

1:15:12

hard to understand actually is this one because it's an because

1:15:14

it's an idiom Mm-hmm. It is

1:15:16

as

1:15:17

He outlines that euro doesn't

1:15:19

trust them

1:15:21

And he says he like euro thinks we should

1:15:23

pay them and probably like promise them

1:15:25

silver and pay them and lead

1:15:28

and

1:15:31

This is great she knows that if she betrays

1:15:33

how much this horrifies her

1:15:35

It will happen. You know, it will give

1:15:37

the game away. So she

1:15:39

Deflects she acknowledges that like yes She

1:15:42

slept with this guy to sort of sample the merchandise

1:15:44

as it were and figure out like what makes him tick But

1:15:47

you know, it's nothing to her if if they

1:15:49

decide to kill this guy, maybe it'd be you know

1:15:52

We can trial this a bit further

1:15:54

and that

1:15:56

Saves Crockett and tubs lives. It allows

1:15:58

the the game to go on but she

1:15:59

but she repeats back to him, you know,

1:16:02

if you, you know, we can always try

1:16:04

this out and later we can always, you

1:16:07

know, pay them pay them and lead. Which

1:16:10

again, like

1:16:12

everything around Montoya feels like it

1:16:15

is like they are their words, idiomatic

1:16:18

sayings, you know, coming from

1:16:20

a different, a different world to us.

1:16:23

And I think that's the only line I stumble

1:16:25

over mostly because that is

1:16:27

not something I've heard said before, but by God,

1:16:30

I love it.

1:16:32

The that way of describing like, that

1:16:35

sort of bait and switch. So,

1:16:37

you know, the deal goes forward.

1:16:39

And the meantime, we get really our only allusion

1:16:41

to this other theme that we saw in the TV show

1:16:44

of like,

1:16:45

Hey, can you be too undercover?

1:16:47

Is it bad for the spirit to be

1:16:49

undercover this much? Because this

1:16:51

is where they take their progress

1:16:53

in the case back to Fujima

1:16:56

and Castillo and outline why

1:16:58

they need to stay under and continue running this

1:17:00

operation.

1:17:02

And there's

1:17:05

one bit I like, which is Crockett

1:17:08

is out of pocket very early on in this

1:17:10

conversation. He lashes out at Fujima and

1:17:13

Jamie Fox

1:17:15

turns and gives him a look

1:17:18

that is completely convincing as

1:17:21

a, Hey, I'm going to back your

1:17:23

play here. But like,

1:17:25

you're actually the crazy person in this conversation. Like

1:17:28

you are, you are, you are

1:17:30

kind of freaking me out and you're sure as hell going to freak

1:17:32

them out. They, they get through

1:17:34

the meeting and takes him aside and he,

1:17:36

you know, offers up that there's

1:17:39

being under and then there is being

1:17:41

so far under, you don't know which way is up. And

1:17:45

that's

1:17:46

his, his challenge to Crockett

1:17:48

is, you know,

1:17:49

do we still know again where

1:17:52

we stand, where,

1:17:54

where this, this operation is at where

1:17:57

we are as, as people.

1:18:00

And it's kind of a shame

1:18:02

this movie can't, because it can't

1:18:04

invest enough time in that relationship, it

1:18:08

can't really get at this

1:18:10

potential breach between these two guys, which

1:18:12

is that Tubbs never loses sight of what

1:18:15

they're doing.

1:18:16

And he has, in

1:18:19

so many words, he has people

1:18:22

on shore effectively that he's

1:18:24

tied to.

1:18:27

So this is where I started playing

1:18:29

the PSP game. Yeah. Because

1:18:33

I found out that it was supposed to be, you

1:18:35

know, it was kind of a prequel to

1:18:37

the movie. And I got nothing

1:18:43

in regards to, you know, elucidating

1:18:48

the relationship between the two of them

1:18:50

in this movie, suffice to say

1:18:52

that

1:18:53

the game has the two of them interacting

1:18:56

so much more. Like

1:18:58

sure. It's not a great game.

1:19:01

They did not voice, they did not get. They

1:19:03

did not voice, no. Were

1:19:06

they PSP exclusive game? No, I don't

1:19:08

think so. Holy shit. I

1:19:11

don't even know what was going on with the, okay,

1:19:13

to be fair, to be fair to Colin

1:19:16

Farrell, who struggled with

1:19:19

even just kind of a generic American

1:19:21

accent at times.

1:19:23

The voice

1:19:25

actors in the PSP game are not good

1:19:28

and don't even try to sound anything

1:19:30

like Colin Farrell or Jamie Foxx.

1:19:34

But like,

1:19:36

there's so much more interaction between Tink,

1:19:38

Crooked and Tubbs than that. It's basically

1:19:41

just like, what if, you know,

1:19:44

what if Miami Vice, the original TV show,

1:19:46

was like cast with Colin Farrell

1:19:48

and Jamie Foxx and looked

1:19:51

kind of like a, you know, an

1:19:54

early Xbox game and

1:19:57

played like a, you know, generic cover shooter

1:19:59

version of Grand,

1:19:59

Grand Theft Auto, it's

1:20:02

fine. The story's about them

1:20:04

taking down a drug dealer. And

1:20:07

you just do that. It's very straightforward.

1:20:09

It's very kind of procedural, Miami

1:20:11

Vice episode in that way.

1:20:14

But there is no, the

1:20:16

thing with this movie is that we

1:20:19

get these moments

1:20:21

where clearly there is a divide

1:20:23

between the two of these characters that

1:20:26

never gets realized, never gets

1:20:29

expanded upon. The

1:20:31

movie can't comment on, like

1:20:35

is this like the deterioration

1:20:37

of masculine partnerships and friendships

1:20:40

after 9-11 or whatever the fuck? Like

1:20:42

what is going on here?

1:20:44

Like there's- Like it's trying to be the anti-buddy cop,

1:20:46

buddy cop story, but like it's

1:20:49

not, again, it's another thing it simply can't

1:20:51

fully commit itself to. It doesn't under,

1:20:53

I don't know that it knows

1:20:56

why Tubbs and Crockett are dissociated from

1:20:58

one another.

1:21:00

Like it can't give us that. Like it's like, oh,

1:21:02

is this like the odds? And now it's like, bro, it's gay

1:21:05

to be friends with your partner. Like

1:21:08

what is going on here that

1:21:10

like we are commenting on? Like, cause

1:21:12

like, I don't understand like, you

1:21:15

know,

1:21:16

why like, okay, through either the movie, if

1:21:18

we accept this movie as a commentary

1:21:21

on and a reaction to it's

1:21:24

not the eighties, it's the odds, shit is

1:21:26

real different now. Okay.

1:21:29

Then what has happened to masculine

1:21:31

friendships that are work relationships

1:21:34

in that time? What is the contemporary

1:21:37

reality of masculine partnerships?

1:21:40

What is going on here? The

1:21:42

movie doesn't want to answer that. The movie can't,

1:21:44

the movie doesn't even want to touch it, really.

1:21:47

Like it doesn't, it certainly doesn't explore it in any

1:21:49

sense. It's too busy with Jamie

1:21:51

Foxx piloting a fancy like

1:21:53

airplane with the propeller in the back

1:21:56

to like, yeah, but I'm playing the football. Like

1:21:58

it's, it gets the thing. It's cool as shit.

1:22:01

But again, when.

1:22:03

I was going to say, well, again, I think that kind

1:22:05

of goes back to a little bit about this movie's,

1:22:08

you know, underlying

1:22:10

need to emphasize

1:22:12

what it thinks is cool about this era,

1:22:15

which is to say that I don't think it does

1:22:17

necessarily understand what is cool

1:22:19

about the odds, not that there was necessarily

1:22:22

a lot cool about the odds, but

1:22:25

cops are coming now to tell me that actually

1:22:27

the odds were very cool. But

1:22:30

translucent plastic man. Yeah, but

1:22:32

like it's.

1:22:36

I feel like the big problem is

1:22:38

that it just it's a signal

1:22:41

that

1:22:41

the filmmaker has still has his

1:22:43

finger on the pulse and not

1:22:45

it is not unwilling to actually demonstrate

1:22:48

anything beyond that it is a lot of signaling

1:22:51

toward things. It is a lot of gesturing

1:22:53

toward things, but like you said, it

1:22:56

doesn't ever quite figure out a way to portray

1:22:58

any of that stuff

1:23:00

because the movie doesn't actually care about

1:23:02

portraying it. It is literally just here

1:23:04

to say, no, I've still got it. I

1:23:06

still know what you think is cool. Well,

1:23:09

it's the Xbox director of marketing,

1:23:11

not the Xbox players. I

1:23:13

guess cool.

1:23:17

There's a.

1:23:19

Really good point though. Hands above his head. Let's

1:23:21

go. No, I mean

1:23:24

you make a good point here that. You

1:23:27

know, if we had if there's a through line, we

1:23:29

could point to basically to a lot

1:23:32

of man's career to date.

1:23:35

It is about

1:23:37

alienation, masculine friendship, but

1:23:39

like by the time like the the

1:23:41

insider and collateral are back-to-back films that entirely

1:23:44

about relationships between

1:23:46

men and you

1:23:48

know, the

1:23:51

the wanting

1:23:54

to be able to crack that shell and

1:23:57

and like connect to

1:23:59

appear.

1:23:59

I can connect to a guy on

1:24:02

that level. Like he builds toward

1:24:04

that moment. So it's one of the, you know, it's

1:24:06

the sort of misconnection that's central to

1:24:08

the film. And you're right,

1:24:11

Miami Vice in some ways maybe

1:24:14

should be

1:24:15

the story of

1:24:17

Crockett betraying Tubbs'

1:24:20

trust in some way, a guy that has

1:24:22

become so lost

1:24:24

in the work of

1:24:27

being an undercover agent that he

1:24:30

misses

1:24:31

these warning lights that Tubbs

1:24:34

is throwing him as he sees that like, you were not, hey,

1:24:36

you were not, you were either not being honest

1:24:38

with me about your feelings or

1:24:40

you were not aware of them, that you would become

1:24:43

dangerous because you are out

1:24:45

of step with yourself

1:24:47

and how you truly feel.

1:24:50

But that never does come to a head in

1:24:53

this movie. The relationship doesn't have that

1:24:55

room to breathe, nor are there any real consequences

1:24:58

for,

1:24:59

like, you know, there's that Miami Vice episode

1:25:02

where,

1:25:03

the fucking,

1:25:06

what was the episode? We talked about it. It was the

1:25:08

really bad kids in their convertible.

1:25:11

Oh yes. The punks. Yeah.

1:25:15

Was it like born to die or something like that? It was worse than

1:25:17

that, the graffiti that they painted on that car. But,

1:25:19

you

1:25:21

know, one of the things that runs through that is

1:25:23

Crockett is completely absorbed in a relationship.

1:25:25

He's not there for Tubbs when Tubbs needs him and

1:25:28

Tubbs gets the shit kicked out of him.

1:25:31

Okay. There needs to be, like, it feels

1:25:33

like this movie wants some kind

1:25:35

of like equivalence to that, but it never

1:25:37

comes up because in some ways,

1:25:41

Crockett get like the fact that Crockett

1:25:43

has lost sight of his loyalties or

1:25:45

what he's doing here,

1:25:47

never actually comes back to bite him.

1:25:49

There's no like, pot wise, there's no consequences

1:25:51

for it. It puts that on Trudy.

1:25:54

Like that's the thing is the movie puts

1:25:56

the consequences on Trudy, but Trudy is not. Rudy

1:26:00

has no connection to Crockett.

1:26:02

Well,

1:26:03

and I would say it's not even Crockett's

1:26:06

fault what happens because all

1:26:08

he does is dance too sexy with

1:26:10

Isabella and Yarrow is

1:26:12

like, she betrayed Jesus? Oh,

1:26:16

I would yearn. Oh, I

1:26:18

would yearn

1:26:19

to be where she sits,

1:26:23

at the right hand of Jesus. I will

1:26:26

punish her for this. This is how he figures

1:26:29

it out is through his like

1:26:31

transfer jealousy of Isabella

1:26:34

onto Crockett. And that's what brings

1:26:36

the entire thing into focus but it's not actually

1:26:39

a slip up on Crockett's part really. It

1:26:41

is just that like they can't keep it

1:26:43

on the down low enough, there is

1:26:46

no Crockett makes an active choice to

1:26:48

prioritize

1:26:51

things wrongly in this. It's

1:26:54

so funny because like,

1:26:56

you know, like I'm like, looking

1:26:58

at this, we have this like weird Shakespearean

1:27:01

romance between Crockett

1:27:04

and Isabella. This is like where like

1:27:06

there needs to be a letter

1:27:09

or something. Like I'm like, I'm like completely

1:27:11

like, you know, like. This

1:27:15

is what we badly need the scene where Castilla

1:27:17

shows up and there's a little known

1:27:19

herb from Columbia. And

1:27:22

then you do not know its properties, but here's

1:27:24

how we will, this is how we will trick

1:27:26

Jose Yero into thinking you

1:27:28

are dead.

1:27:30

Like I'm so like TS Eliot

1:27:32

pilled about this fucking romance where I'm like, no,

1:27:34

there needs to be an objective fucking correlative

1:27:36

for the relationship between, you know,

1:27:39

fucking like Gogli and

1:27:42

Colin Farrell and there isn't one. And

1:27:45

so Yero can't fucking discover it. And

1:27:47

so like instead we had this bad footage of them just

1:27:49

dancing sexy together, which like whatever.

1:27:53

And like really secretly in love with.

1:27:56

Well yeah, wow. They watched strictly ballroom once and they're

1:27:58

having themselves a good time. Wow.

1:27:59

Great. And like,

1:28:03

it's just like, I'm just like, I'm just

1:28:05

like, no, this is man's greatest creative

1:28:07

failure. I expected

1:28:10

when he shows when he shows Jesus the

1:28:12

footage

1:28:13

and he's like, I implore you, please

1:28:16

just look at look at this. I

1:28:18

expect it would have been very funny if he gets killed because

1:28:20

it's like it's totally a sign that Jose's lost

1:28:22

his mind. Right. Yes. Some

1:28:24

completely chaste dancing

1:28:27

happening at my

1:28:29

weirdly Dolph Club. It wouldn't

1:28:31

have it wouldn't have been out of

1:28:33

line with the movie if like, Euro

1:28:35

did just get like popped in the head right

1:28:38

then and there because the entire movie

1:28:40

is set up to make him look like a jackass

1:28:42

when he's completely fucking right time

1:28:45

and time again. But also the movie

1:28:47

can't commit to this being a movie about how

1:28:49

Euro is wrong. No, no.

1:28:52

Or his is wronged, I

1:28:54

should say, because he is right time

1:28:56

and time again.

1:28:58

He is. He's the only one that has his finger

1:29:00

on the pulse of anything in this movie. And ironically,

1:29:02

he is the most put upon character in all of

1:29:04

it. But it's to

1:29:07

the point you mentioned earlier about Trudy

1:29:09

kind of getting the brunt of a lot of this stuff and

1:29:11

sort of the fact that there is no real consequence

1:29:13

for the ways in which Crockett's behavior

1:29:16

fucks up their case, possibly gets almost gets Trudy

1:29:18

killed. All this stuff, a braver

1:29:20

version of this movie is

1:29:22

specifically about the breakup between

1:29:25

Crockett and Tubbs. It is about

1:29:27

them starting out as the kinds of characters

1:29:30

you knew in the TV show. And

1:29:32

then the movie slowly unraveling that in the

1:29:34

era they are in, that kind of chucklehead

1:29:37

undercover fucking flashy bullshit

1:29:40

just cannot work anymore. And

1:29:42

it actually ruins that relationship

1:29:45

to a degree to where the end scene

1:29:47

of Crockett showing up at

1:29:49

the hospital and with his tail between his legs

1:29:51

after sending Isabella after ditching out

1:29:54

on that gunfight at the very end without telling

1:29:56

anyone and sending Isabella off. That was garbage

1:29:58

time. Yeah, let's go to the- I

1:30:01

know I'm just saying it's like

1:30:02

that is a there's a real emotional thing

1:30:05

you could connect that scene to That

1:30:08

the movie does none of the legwork to

1:30:10

make happen by the time they get there him

1:30:12

and tubs are still just right as rain Like they've

1:30:14

had a few arguments, but there's nothing there's

1:30:17

no real conflict

1:30:18

between them And I think that

1:30:21

is maybe the greatest failure of these portrayals

1:30:23

and of these versions of the character

1:30:25

is that there's no

1:30:27

Instinct whatsoever

1:30:29

to try and even turn that relationship

1:30:31

a little bit It not only can

1:30:33

it not figure out how to way to turn them into Versions

1:30:36

of Crockett and tubs in 2006 that make any goddamn

1:30:39

sense But it can't even make a comment

1:30:42

on what that relationship would be like

1:30:44

in this era They're just guys

1:30:47

who have worked together for a while and

1:30:49

some stuff goes wrong, but then it's all

1:30:52

okay And that's nothing. It's just

1:30:54

nothing

1:30:55

Yeah, so the other thing yeah

1:30:58

you alluded earlier to your

1:31:00

suspicion or your gut feeling that like

1:31:02

There's gonna be revealed that like Isabella

1:31:05

knew all along to me the moment

1:31:07

where I feel like on some level She totally

1:31:09

knows what is going on is

1:31:11

When after the the

1:31:13

dance the the dance that sort of has

1:31:16

turned out to betray them, but they don't know yet they're walking along

1:31:18

the waterfront and

1:31:20

He does the

1:31:22

whole like do you have money stashed

1:31:24

away like asking all the questions like hey, so If

1:31:27

the feds had for instance

1:31:34

Tells her

1:31:36

Hey, I have massively

1:31:38

betrayed you you are wildly at

1:31:40

risk Would you be okay

1:31:42

if that's the case and could maybe?

1:31:45

We still hook up afterwards

1:31:47

like All the flags

1:31:49

are there, but she gets the only she

1:31:51

gets the only like

1:31:53

Again, she's like the only poetry that's in

1:31:55

this movie is she gives him the time is luck

1:31:59

Like this is her

1:31:59

philosophy and this becomes a very a

1:32:02

very man protagonist right of You

1:32:04

know the this sense that I'm

1:32:07

not too bound to these things because

1:32:09

it is also

1:32:13

It is also delicate it's also

1:32:15

contingent on so many things can disappear overnight

1:32:18

and she is willing to accept life

1:32:20

on those terms and

1:32:22

and

1:32:24

She's had to

1:32:25

but

1:32:26

You know in some ways that is a there's a response that lets him

1:32:29

off the hook in

1:32:30

A lot of ways as well

1:32:32

that it is not him doing this to her It

1:32:35

is that she already accepts on some level This is just

1:32:37

the nature of the world and one way or another

1:32:39

this will happen And I think what's

1:32:42

missing is a little bit of that

1:32:45

You know a movie I think quite highly of

1:32:47

Donnie Brasco the relationship

1:32:49

between Depp and Pacino's

1:32:52

character you feel every ounce

1:32:54

of that like sickening betrayal like depths the

1:32:57

The degree to which you feel horrible

1:33:00

for what?

1:33:01

But it was gonna happen to Pacino because of this

1:33:03

friendship when people get sent for oh, yeah,

1:33:06

yeah

1:33:08

Yeah, like the the honest to God

1:33:10

like love between these characters

1:33:14

And

1:33:14

it doesn't shrink from that that entire movie is about

1:33:17

you're gonna do this guy like that And he's gonna pay

1:33:19

the price for this great

1:33:21

undercover operation And you're gonna

1:33:24

check in a metal and will it all been worth it right?

1:33:27

What a good movie yes, but Here

1:33:30

he's

1:33:31

basically like

1:33:32

I'm a fad and she's like

1:33:35

it's cool. We live in a world of Mischance

1:33:39

and sadness so whatever happens

1:33:41

is fine and that really defangs

1:33:45

Later when she sees him putting on the badge

1:33:47

in the middle of a gunfight like yes She has

1:33:49

her moment of like you son of a bitch like who are you who

1:33:51

are you? But

1:33:53

this whole scene is is screaming

1:33:56

That I'm not who I say I am and

1:33:58

I've already cost

1:33:59

everything. Yeah.

1:34:02

So I guess you know you could

1:34:05

coming into this point in the movie we could feel bad

1:34:07

for Jose Iero because fundamentally he has

1:34:09

done nothing wrong. I always went

1:34:12

over Jose Iero.

1:34:14

I mean nothing wrong for a murderous

1:34:16

cartel

1:34:16

guy is maybe not the right phrasing

1:34:18

but yes I know which he's right about the things

1:34:21

that he's saying. But to really hammer

1:34:23

home how awful he is

1:34:25

what is the weapon he wields stateside

1:34:28

the Aryan Brotherhood.

1:34:29

Yes true and so he turns them

1:34:31

loose on Trudy and they have been

1:34:33

his sort of

1:34:35

you know praetorian guard for this operation

1:34:37

in Miami since the start of this

1:34:39

movie and so they

1:34:42

kidnapped Trudy and again they do the Smuggler's Blues

1:34:45

thing of trying to extort

1:34:48

Tubbs and Crockett

1:34:49

on this run in order to have

1:34:52

them turn over the goods and then surrender themselves

1:34:54

to to heroes

1:34:56

judgment

1:34:58

and we get the

1:35:01

surprisingly easily they figure out

1:35:04

where Trudy is.

1:35:05

They've got the the full

1:35:07

you know power of the

1:35:09

federal and state law enforcement

1:35:12

there's enough clues they

1:35:14

they quickly unravel

1:35:15

where in this trailer park she is

1:35:17

we get the we get the quiet stealthy

1:35:20

like takedown

1:35:22

of

1:35:23

the the guards they left on

1:35:25

her which is which is pretty easy like the thing that the

1:35:28

thing that is very clear is this is

1:35:31

a very like low rent street gang

1:35:33

in some ways they this this part of the operation

1:35:35

they run across and like they have manpower

1:35:38

but they are not particularly well kitted

1:35:40

out or outfitted to deal with anything

1:35:42

that isn't just right violence on people and

1:35:44

the Miami Vice crew like goes through them like a just

1:35:47

like just absolutely cuts to them we get

1:35:50

the we get the cool scene of

1:35:52

yeah

1:35:54

where they're holding the well

1:35:56

crucially it's not a Dead Man switch if we're

1:35:58

a Dead Man switch this might

1:35:59

have been trickier. Yeah. It's the dude holding

1:36:02

the detonator with his thumb

1:36:04

over the button, thinking that, you know,

1:36:07

he can get to it

1:36:08

if they shoot him and

1:36:11

kill everyone. And we get Elizabeth

1:36:13

Rodriguez giving the

1:36:16

speech of that's not what's going to happen. Like,

1:36:19

it's going to sever your spine

1:36:21

before the thought can even occur to you. And

1:36:23

then does exactly that as he as he

1:36:25

still hesitates.

1:36:27

But the punchline to all of this

1:36:30

is you're like, well done. We rescued

1:36:33

Trudy. Like they've got nothing over us now. We

1:36:35

have full freedom of action. We saved the day.

1:36:39

And they're like a Trudy. Hang

1:36:42

loose inside this trailer. And that's this thing you were

1:36:44

tied to that was going to that could explode. We're

1:36:47

going to go and secure the area.

1:36:51

And that's when Jose Arrow gets

1:36:54

spooked by the fact that nobody's answering the phone.

1:36:56

He sees on the camera feed that something's

1:36:58

wrong. He blows up the trailer and

1:37:00

Trudy is blown up anyway. This made

1:37:02

me so mad.

1:37:05

This made me as mad as the roses scene.

1:37:07

But this made

1:37:09

me like, I think it's really, it's just like, I

1:37:11

just like, like

1:37:14

watching like these, these scenes,

1:37:17

like, you know, in the same movie, I'm just like, Michael,

1:37:19

man, what is wrong with you?

1:37:21

Like senseless in every way. Like, like

1:37:24

it's a trained officer. It

1:37:26

pisses me off. First of all, that

1:37:28

we put Trudy in this position. Yes.

1:37:30

That we take in the character Trudy

1:37:33

Joplin of Gertrude, big

1:37:35

booty Joplin

1:37:38

and put her in the position where she

1:37:40

is just damseled.

1:37:43

And like the only time she really gets to be like,

1:37:45

you know, hardcore is when she dresses

1:37:47

down the one

1:37:49

motherfucker. Yeah. Yeah.

1:37:52

By the way, that's

1:37:54

the only, she's the only character who sounds like she's

1:37:56

in a fucking Miami Vice episode at the whole

1:37:58

movie. She's the only.

1:37:59

character who sounds like a Michael

1:38:02

Mann character at

1:38:03

like at any juncture. Like

1:38:05

she has a handle on the dialogue and the

1:38:08

delivery the way that a Mann character

1:38:10

should. Way

1:38:12

better than just about any other

1:38:14

actor in this movie. Including the moral indignation

1:38:16

of yeah hey who are you to doubt us?

1:38:19

Your piece of shit. One he was like why does

1:38:21

this keep happening to me in that great line delivery of because

1:38:24

you lead a life of crime. Yeah

1:38:26

but but two the

1:38:28

like hey

1:38:30

we're the people who always keep our word. You're

1:38:33

a piece of shit.

1:38:34

Like you like you do not get to cast

1:38:36

doubt and aspersions on us after years of us having

1:38:39

your back. No she like you're you're

1:38:41

right like

1:38:43

wasted casting of

1:38:45

a terrific Naomi Naomi Harris

1:38:48

in this movie and then to have it pay off in

1:38:50

this

1:38:51

damsel twice over. They have

1:38:54

the same where they rescue her

1:38:56

and then she still has to be jeopardized because

1:38:58

crucially like they also want the scene of her being

1:39:01

in a coma and like

1:39:03

tubs being confronted with that. It

1:39:06

it sucks. It like it is like

1:39:09

the movie can't pick between two directions

1:39:11

for the plot to go.

1:39:13

Picks both

1:39:14

and this is where I think it turns the entire thing into like tragic

1:39:17

comedy in some ways of just like

1:39:19

these cops are buffoons. We went to all

1:39:21

that

1:39:22

and you left her inside the fucking

1:39:24

trailer to get blown up. That's the thing that makes no sense

1:39:26

to me. I'm like okay you know if

1:39:29

this was like someone who was like you know

1:39:31

in a car wreck they

1:39:34

would be pulled out of the car and they'd have wrapped

1:39:36

in the gray flannel blanket and

1:39:39

like seated inside of like you know an emergency

1:39:41

vehicle and been like it's gonna be

1:39:43

okay you're gonna be all right here

1:39:45

psych services they're coming here we're gonna

1:39:48

take your blood pressure and get you fluids and blah

1:39:50

blah blah blah blah blah and like no here

1:39:52

we get Naomi like Harris

1:39:54

just kind of stumbling around inside

1:39:57

a fucking double wide meth lab.

1:39:59

Because of course, like, Florida,

1:40:02

Michael Mann's making my guess because of Florida. Well,

1:40:04

we have to have white supremacists running a meth

1:40:06

lab in a trailer park.

1:40:08

Sure. That's Florida.

1:40:10

And that's believable to a degree.

1:40:12

But the fact that like this woman who is a trained

1:40:15

officer and these other trained officers who, again,