The running time is 2 hrs. 20 mins..
Now comes the picture's DVD release in both a theatrical edition as well as an unrated director's cut featuring a new opening and alternate looks at scenes contained in the original version of the film. But don't think this new incarnation is the one Mann wished he'd have released the first time around. As he points out in his complex, amazingly detailed commentary track, he is one Hollywood director that always has final cut on his movies, so the Miami Vice seen in July was exactly the one he wanted audiences to see.
But that doesn't mean the director is satisfied. Obviously, if he was he wouldn't have re-jiggered it for its DVD debut. So think of this new disc as an alternate cut also approved by the wildly talented filmmaker, and as such it is a magnificently intriguing look inside the filmmaking process and how even a finished product is never really finished inside the minds of those that created it in the first place.
That said, I'm hard pressed to say this version of the film is any better than the original I saw almost five months ago. They both have the same problems in regards to pacing, and Mann's script still has a few too many holes and inconsistencies to be completely satisfying. And while Jamie Foxx's Ricardo Tubbs impressed me even more at home than it did in the theater, Colin Farrell's continuously brooding swagger as Sonny Crockett wore on me after a while and I found myself imaging who would have been a better choice to play the character first made famous two decades ago by Don Johnson.
But the film's numerous plusses still outweigh any of these minuses. Mann's tightly wound direction is absolutely suffocating in its delirious use of suspense, and like all of the filmmaker's features this one is a technical marvel pretty much beginning to end. There is a raid on a trailer park near the film's climax that is an absolute model of action-adventure perfection, the scene ending on a coda of such vice-like tension it should be required viewing for any young director thinking of making their own cops and robbers policier.
It is Gong Li who truly blew me away, however. Portraying a high-level financial director and money launderer for a powerful international drug smuggler who finds herself falling in love with Crockett, the talented Chinese actress delivers one of the most fascinating performances I've seen this year. She's beautiful, dynamic, strong, needy and confident, a cavalcade of emotional complexities hitting the screen so hard I can't imagine another actress making such an indelible impression.
On DVD, the film looks marvelous in its dynamic 2.40:1 Widescreen transfer. As for special features, not only is there the aforementioned commentary from Mann (giving you insight to the real events inspiring much of the picture's plotline), there are three excellent documentaries; "Miami Vice Undercover," "Miami & Beyond: Shooting on Location," "Visualizing Miami Vice;" showcasing the difficulties and technical wherewithal that went into bringing Mann's vision to the screen. Rounding out the features are three short (each under three minutes) featurettes covering other behind-the-scenes aspects of this film's production.
Miami Vice is not perfect. I'd have liked a bit of the depth and dramatic insights which made Mann classics like Heat and Thief so wondrous and one of a kind. But as an action film exploring the depths of undercover police work this movie still is a powerful slug to the chest that I can't help but profess my love for. For fans of the director, this one is one to own. For everyone else, the movie is a slam-bang rental sure to entertain even the most hard to please cop film fanatic.