Miami Vice (2006) – A Moment of Exposition

In the first twenty minutes of Miami Vice, Michael Mann’s portrayal of violence acts as both an incredibly economical tool of exposition, as well as a communication of a clear tone – that in which an undercurrent of violence is both feared and expected.

Jamie Foxx and Colin Farell’s FBI agents are called by an undercover cop working in relation to drug cartels. It is revealed that his wife or partner has been killed by a cartel, his photograph becoming important foreshadowing when Foxx’s girlfriend is also held hostage in a similar way. However, it is also instrumental to the plot because the agents become aware that they cannot go through with a later deal because the consequence will be the same. He tells them this information after they pull him over on a highway.

Of course, plot isn’t everything, yet, with the texture and attention to detail of Mann’s screenplay, acts of violence are made tangible and a source of tension throughout the film, which is more bookended (than littered) by high-action sequences, allowing Mann to reinforce other themes such as love and betrayal. In other words, through early foreshadowing, the director is allowed to relax a bit (and thank God, because the subdued colour palette and loose camera movements are compelling and visceral), exploring a typically masculine and suave environment, punctuated by candid and haunting spurts of violence.

After revealing the news of his partner’s death, the man steps in front of a vehicle. In this sequence, the editing is jarring, yet unassuming, leaving us with the disturbingly quiet image of a trail of blood extending behind the vehicle as it speeds away into the haze of night, characteristically rendered in Mann’s (sometimes) celebrated digital camerawork. More than for plot, or even character, Mann establishes a visual language of violence as something that is shocking, yet not gratuitous or even exciting. 

Despite this never being wholly consistent, the audience is constantly aware of the threadbare mortality of the characters, with this fleetingness providing an undercurrent of violence even in the comparatively lighter moments of the film. It is this undercurrent that heightens the pathos of Colin Farrells’s romantic moments of the film, with a sort of dramatic irony (or even just logic) suggesting that these relationships cannot last.

It is merely the implication of violence that makes the film so effective; the lack of violence in the camerawork hinting at the singular disgust of violence itself. Mann sees a reality in his gritty and unique style, and never sacrifices it for cheapness. By the camera’s assumption of nothingness, trailing (panning) to the subject of death, the spectator is made to confront a very real and subdued image of an instantaneous death in a genre that flaunts that same idea.