Do you feel like you’re drowning … but you haven’t even left your couch? Welcome to the Great Content Overload Era. To help you navigate the choppy digital waves, here are The Globe’s best bets for streaming. This weekend: a special Miami-goes-to-the-movies edition!
Miami Vice (Tubi, on-demand via Apple TV, Amazon, Cineplex Store)
Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell in Miami Vice (2006).Credit: Frank Connor / Universal/Universal Pictures
The other week, a minor fury erupted in certain online circles over Michael Mann’s Miami Vice, the polarizing 2006 adaptation of his own era-defining eighties television series. The particulars of this controversy aren’t worth wading into for all but the most extremely online of cinephiles – there were accusations of “copaganda” and heteronormative viewing habits etc. – yet the ultimate result was a groundswell of people talking about and re-examining a film that got unfairly maligned during its theatrical release almost two decades ago. So much so that art-house theatres across the United States started programming one-off screenings of the film (still waiting for you to step in, TIFF Lightbox!). Which is all a net benefit, given that Mann’s film is one of the most unusually textured and poetic crime thrillers ever made.
Derided by critics who were expecting Mann to resurrect the neon-soaked atmosphere of his original Don Johnson/Philip Michael Thomas NBC series, this big-screen reworking was an entirely different kind of mood-setter, presenting Miami as a dark cesspool of backstabbers and doomed lovers. Barely any scenes take place during the day, the violence is brutal and harsh, and the skies are constantly filled with thunder and lightning – the warnings of a perfect and deadly storm that never quite arrives. And at least half the film doesn’t even take place in Miami, with Mann following undercover cops Sonny (Colin Farrell) and Rico (Jamie Foxx) to Haiti and Cuba as they infiltrate a multinational drug cartel, their dialogue choked with barely decipherable cop-shop talk, emphasizing Mann’s preference for atmosphere over narrative.
Still, revisiting the film recently – and just like the original tweet/X posting that set the whole silly controversy off, it was for the purposes of introducing the film to my wife – got me thinking about what some of the other great “Miami” movies might. Which is why this weekend’s streaming guide is all about the best in pure Southern Florida cinema. Fix yourself a mojito and get comfortable.
2 Fast 2 Furious (Hollywood Suite, on-demand via Apple TV, Amazon, Cineplex Store)
Paul Walker and Tyrese Gibson in 2 Fast 2 Furious.Supplied
While far from the best of the Fast & Furious films – a subject I know perhaps more about than my own children (sorry, kids!) – there is a vibrant, cartoonish, only-in-Miami energy to director John Singleton’s sequel that makes it endlessly fun to revisit. And upon rewatch, the 2003 film seems to have also directly inspired Mann’s Miami Vice film, given that the plots are nearly identical: Both focus on two fashionable bros going undercover to work as drug-transportation experts for a terrifying cartel kingpin, with one of the heroes (Paul Walker in this case) falling in love with the chief villain’s consigliere/lover (Eva Mendes here, Gong Li in Mann’s film). There’s even a climactic scene involving a boat – although 2 Fast’s vehicle is a yacht, not Vice’s slick go-fast vessel. So, in my mind, Miami Vice is now officially part of the Fast-verse. Michael Mann, are you ready to meet your ultimate match in Vin Diesel? I surely hope so.
Moonlight (Paramount+, CBC Gem)
Alex Hibbert and Jaden Pine in Moonlight.David Bornfriend/Elevation
Far away from the white-wall decadence of South Beach or the artist haven of Wynwood, Barry Jenkins’s breakthrough film examines the heartbreaking pains of those living inside Miami’s margins. Set and shot almost entirely in the blighted neighbourhood of Liberty City, where Jenkins himself grew up, Moonlight follows one disenfranchised young boy named Chiron, who over the course of three chapters tries his very best to shake off the traumatic weight of his childhood. Featuring a standout performance from Naomie Harris – who also has a central role in Mann’s Miami Vice – and three excellent actors as Chiron as the character ages (Alex R. Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, Trevante Rhodes), Moonlight breaks down cinematic barriers and your emotional defences all at once. And, crucially, Jenkins always makes sure to highlight a Miami that much of movie history has ignored.
Bad Boys II (Netflix, Crave, Paramount+, Hollywood Suite)
Will Smith in Bad Boys II.John Bramley/Supplied
In a rare alignment of Canadian streamers, Michael Bay’s Miami masterpiece Bad Boys II is currently streaming on almost all the major domestic platforms. Perhaps the licensing deal that Sony Pictures cut with everyone was a happy accident of timing, or perhaps the streamers are each taking advantage of the fact that the fourth film, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, is currently performing well in theatres. Whatever the case, there’s no better time to soak in all the ultraviolent ridiculousness that is Bad Boys II, which Bay made just one year after blowing up San Francisco with The Rock. A wildly inventive case study in cinematic excess, this sequel looks the sometimes gauche, sometimes refined decadence of Miami high life straight in the eye and then proceeds to slap, spit and punch its pretty face for two-plus hours. Fetishizing sports cars and luxury high-rises before tearing them apart, Bay creates a monstrously entertaining act of cinematic chaos. It is both the best and worst advertisement that Tourism Miami could ever hope for.
Scarface (Crave)
Al Pacino in Scarface.The Associated Press
As highlighted in Glenn Kenny’s excellent new book The World is Yours: The Story of Scarface, much of Brian De Palma’s cocaine-empire epic wasn’t actually filmed in Miami, given that local politicians at the time were so vehemently opposed to its depiction of Cuban-American gangsters. So while producers captured some quick exterior shots, most of the film – including Al Pacino’s marathon machine-gun shootout toward the end – was shot in California. Regardless, there is an undeniable mucho-Miami atmosphere to Scarface, which flits between the VIP excesses of its club scene to the hardscrabble outsiders looking to climb whatever ladder they can to reach the top. As Tony Montana says ... well, actually, no, I can’t directly quote anything the character says in the film without getting angry letters. Just watch, or more likely rewatch, the movie and find out for yourself.