Miami Vice (Michael Mann, 2006)

Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell in Miami Vice

Cast: Jamie Foxx, Colin Farrell, Gong Li, Naomie Harris, Ciaràn Hinds, Justin Theroux, Barry Shabaka Henley, Luis Tosar, John Ortiz, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Dominick Lombardozzi, Eddie Marsan, Isaach De Bankolé, John Hawkes. Screenplay: Michael Mann. Cinematography: Dion Beebe. Production design: Victor Kempster. Film editing: William Goldenberg, Paul Rubell. Music: John Murphy. 

The dark-on-dark credits roll for Michael Mann's film version of his hit 1980s TV series Miami Vice is the most illegible I've ever tried to read. It's as if no one connected with the movie was especially eager to be associated with it. Not that it's a bad movie, but that it never comes to life, never stirs the kind of enthusiasm that the original did. It has all the elements: attractive performers, hip music, fast cars, boats, and planes, the requisite sex and violence. But it doesn't seem to be going anywhere new or interesting. The characters don't generate much empathy or commitment to their fates. It ends on the most perfunctory note I think I've seen in a big American movie, not even trying to make you want a sequel.

Baby Driver (Edgar Wright, 2017)

Jon Hamm, Eiza González, Ansel Elgort, and Jamie Foxx in Baby Driver

Baby: Ansel Elgort
Debora: Lily James
Doc: Kevin Spacey
Buddy: Jon Hamm
Bats: Jamie Foxx
Darling: Eiza González
Griff: Jon Bernthal
Joseph: CJ Jones
Eddie: Flea
JD: Lanny Joon

Director: Edgar Wright
Screenplay: Edgar Wright
Cinematography: Bill Pope
Production design: Marcus Rowland
Film editing: Jonathan Amos, Paul Machliss
Music: Steven Price

As the old moralizing adage has it, anything worth doing is worth doing well. But what if something is not worth doing? Do we really need another car-chase-crammed, Tarantino-tinged, hyperviolent heist thriller? Even if it's as well done as Edgar Wright's Baby Driver? Is "It held my interest" enough? If so, Baby Driver held my interest because Wright created some intriguing characters and assigned them to first-rate actors like Ansel Elgort, Jon Hamm, Jamie Foxx, and Kevin Spacey.* I could wish that they had been given more interesting things to do than commit crimes and try to kill one another off, or that we didn't have to sit through another insane demolition of bright shiny cars to find out who survives and how and why. I could wish for some backstory for Baby (né Miles) beyond the fact that he lost his bickering parents in a car crash and somehow wound up as driver for Doc and caregiver for a deaf-mute black man named Joseph. I could wish that the romance of Baby and Debora didn't seem so formulaic -- you've got a handsome young leading man so he must have a pretty girlfriend, one who puts them in jeopardy. Or I could just sit back and enjoy the thing, especially the wittily chosen music track and the way Wright fits the action to the tunes: The film has a credited choreographer, Ryan Heffington, and since there are no traditional dance numbers it seems that he was hired to help the actors move to the music -- in fact, the whole film was inspired by Wright's work on music videos.

*This may be Spacey's last major movie, given the many charges levied against him. Even Baby Driver is a little hard to watch without those coming to mind.