Universal Pictures presents in association with Motion Picture ETA Produktionsgesellschaft MBH & Co. KG
A Forward Pass production
MPAA rating R / Running time — 132 minutes

QUOTE: Farrell and Foxx are partners? They don’t even look at each other in Mann’s remake of his acclaimed HEAT.

The rumors were rampant about this troubled production. Last year The New York Post’s “Page Six” ran down the litany of rumors. According to Page Six, the movie was “greenlit at $120 million, but the budget has been blown and it is now costing upwards of $180 million. And they aren’t even done yet. It will likely be a $200 million tab by the end of shooting.” And, “stars Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell have become slightly bloated, with Farrell sporting “beer boobs” due to their constant partying in Miami. Farrell is said to not be getting along with director Mann who is a perfectionist. In addition, there have been reports of fights between Farrell and Foxx. Foxx was said to be upset that Farrell was being paid more than he was, so he demanded his paycheck be boosted from $7.5 million to $10 million to match his bloated co-star.”

What actually happened? Seeing the movie confirms that Farrell and Foxx were not just fighting, they were not speaking to each other. It’s up there on the screen. Farrell’s charisma is intact (he just knows how to look casually smoldering – it’s a gift), but he barely looks at Foxx. These two are not partners who will cover each other’s backs, or bend a few police procedures.

And being bloated? In the love scenes Farrell is carefully blocked. The entire movie is so dark not because director Michael Mann chose to forego any pastel memories of the TV series but because his sex-god stars were fat.

I’m calling it the “Colonel Kurtz Syndrome.” Remember when Marlon Brando turned up obese for his role in APOCALYPSE NOW? What did Francis Ford Coppola do? He shot Brando in the dark, blacking out everything but his bald head.

Mann’s script is too weak to make comparisons to his thrilling HEAT. The entire HEAT cast was terrific and Mann was able to write definitive supporting characters that galvanized the storyline. In MIAMI VICE he has only two stars potentially as magnetic as De Niro and Pacino, but their dislike for each other cripples the movie, especially Farrell who delivers all his lines to Foxx while facing away from his co-star.

Undercover vice cops Sonny Crockett (Farrell) and Ricardo Tubbs (Foxx) are not players or partners. They are good cops who do not bend their allegiances to suit the circumstances. At least that is what I remembered about the TV series – the hazy ethics of Crockett and Tubbs. Somehow, here, personality-deficient Crockett and Tubbs stumble into a by-the-numbers gang of international drug traffickers headed by a Chinese-Cuban dragon-lady, Isabella (Gong Li). She’s a tough piece of work until she meets Crockett, who she believes is a highly paid drug courier. Sure, Crockett is good looking, but would this tough cookie bother with the help?

And then fall in love with him?

I figured Crockett would use her for some ruthless “undercover” cop work, but guess what? He falls for her for no good reason!

And finally, I always enjoy it when you see a director’s Achilles Heel right up there on the screen. Mann is again working out a psychological and traumatic theme, and it’s damn similar to the one we saw in HEAT, COLLATERAL and THIEF. Tough, solitary men become stupid for a woman, jeopardizing themselves in the process. The problem is it goes against their character makeup. At least in HEAT, De Niro’s character McCauley was aging, wanted out of the business, and needed a normal girlfriend.

Mann ignores his supporting cast, wasting the very interesting Naomie Harris,
Ciaran Hinds, Barry Shabaka Henley, Luis Tosar, and Justin Theroux (whose work is usually so good – he’s just background here).

What went wrong? Did Mann – who has such a great track record working with superstars De Niro, Pacino, and Tom Cruise – lose control? A huge budget, and the star turns up fat and will not go on a diet to please his director and audience? I call it “Celebrity Self-Loathing.”

Credits:
Director-screenwriter: Michael Mann
Based on the television series created by: Anthony Yerkovich
Producers: Michael Mann, Pieter Jan Brugge
Executive producer: Anthony Yerkovich
Director of photography: Dion Beebe
Production designer: Victor Kempster
Editors: William Goldenberg, Paul Rubell
Costume designers: Janty Yates, Michael Kaplan
Music: John Murphy

Cast:
Detective Ricardo Tubbs: Jamie Foxx
Detective Sonny Crockett: Colin Farrell
Isabella: Gong Li
Trudy: Naomie Harris
Fujima: Ciaran Hinds
Zito: Justin Theroux
Lieutenant Castillo: Barry Shabaka Henley
Montoya: Luis Tosar
Jose Yero: John OrtizGina: Elizabeth Rodriguez

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QUOTE: A phallic masterpiece. My testosterone level went up 10%.

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Director Rob Cohen is only interested in something if it reminds him of his penis. And this is not necessarily a bad thing, since it is probably a highly idealized penis. Cohen is a master at visualizing repressed teenage boy’s fantasies. And with STEALTH he has also almost managed to make Josh Lucas sexy. Perhaps Quentin Tarantino could ignite Lucas’s Paul Newmanese appeal. Someone needs to. Right now, its there but you have to work too hard with him to see it. Lucas needs the right role and a director that wants a handsome stand-in for himself. STEALTH comes close because of Cohen. Cohen could make dirt sexy.

This is exactly what Cohen is paid to do. He makes Lucas, Foxx, and Biel sexy, tough, and aggressively male. You don’t see a Rob Cohen movie without sensing his hand in every scene. There is no denying STEALTH has a vigorous, blast of energy rolled up into a far-fetched story. (My husband, who had an illustrious 32-year career in the military, hated the movie’s nutty premise and low-level, simplistic technology.) Having playwright/actor Sam Shepard on board gives STEALTH emotional weight. Shepard is playing his character’s central backstory and invests more acting then Cohen required. Shepard may be angling to become the next Gene Hackman; though I would not like to see Sam doing comedy or wearing fake teeth.

Lt. Ben Gannon (Josh Lucas), Lt. Kara Wade (Jessica Biel) and Lt Henry Purcell (Jamie Foxx) are an elite group of Navy fighter pilots who fly stealth fighter jets known as Talons. Their commander, Capt. George Cummings (Sam Shepard), informs them they will be getting a fourth member, a new wingman, on the team. It is a prototype drone, nicknamed EDI. It is entirely unmanned and is fashioned after 2001’s HAL. It has a big red eye, feelings and, eventually, expresses a mind of its own. Gannon is not enamored with EDI and EDI is offended by the snub.

Gannon is the sexy team leader in love with Wade, a prize catch as the poster girl for Navy women and a real smart pilot with a bright future ahead of her. Purcell is fascinated by prime numbers and, if you are also, there is a million dollar prize from The Clay Mathematics Institute for solving one of the seven greatest unsolved mathematical puzzles of our time: The Riemann Hypothesis. This problem has something to do with primes.

The Stealth team does a great deal of mayhem and destruction of cities as per their orders. Unbeknownst to taxpayers and the U.S. Congress, these pilots are prowling the air just looking for something to blow up. When sent out to destroy a Tajikistani warlord supposedly hiding in plain sight with nuclear weapons, Ben, after hearing from the very smart Wade about how many people will die, decides to go against orders. EDI, on the other hand, has no such moral qualms. EDI decides he knows best. Wade is forced to eject from her aircraft on a seek-and- destroy-with-massive-bombs mission and ends up in South Korea. Gannon has to decide to either destroy EDI or rescue his teammate.

It’s really unnecessary to discuss the logic or technological truth of STEALTH. And, if you think you are going to learn something about fighter jets today, this is not the movie for you. For that, join the Navy Pilots program. If you want a testosterone fueled, high excitement level of adventure, filled up with massive explosions and a very sexy, and muscular Jessica Biel, STEALTH works.

Universal and Bristol Day Productions present an Anvil Films production in association with Baldwin Entertainment
Running time — 152 minutes

When I originally saw the film, I thought it no more than good, comparable in quality to a TV movie, and not meaning to denigrate it by that comparison, just establishing a reasonable analogy. At the same time, I found Jamie Foxx’s portrayal of Ray Charles to be magnificent, so packed with vocal and physical nuance that it manifestly transcended the realm of ‘impression’. To sink knee-deep into cliché, I forgot he was acting – he was Ray Charles. I felt similarly about Robert Downy Jr. in CHAPLIN, except that in that case, the film wasn’t even remotely good.

Seeing it again on DVD, the film itself has improved dramatically, mainly because of the screenplay and editing, which carry a lengthy bio-narrative along at locomotive speed, and often overlaps the lyrics of Charles’ best songs onto complex emotional events which are unfolding in his life. I’ve always had problems with biopics, particularly biopics about artists in which we’re supposed to understand what made them create. I had no such problems here, although I did miss seeing him being influenced by local gospel music as a child.

The DVD presents two versions of the film, the theatrical version, and a director’s cut with restored footage. The 25 minutes of restored scenes, or parts of scenes, are not formatted for 16X9, nor are they made to look desaturated and ‘period’ like the rest of the film, so they would have stood out even had they been seamlessly integrated rather than heralded by the two (visual, not sonal) musical notes that appear on screen each time a deleted clip is about to be shown. A few of these scenes enhanced the film, particularly one in which Kerry Washington, as Ray’s wife, endures verbal abuse about her husband in church, and later listens to him confess his own concerns about mixing gospel with rock. One of my problems with the theatrical release was that I detected no chemistry between the two actors to account for his wanting to marry her, but with the inclusion of these scenes, that problem was eliminated.

Another insert that moved me was of a soft shoe dancer in one of the clubs in which Ray first performed. His act is cut to next-to-nothing in the theatrical version, and justifiably so, to keep the story moving. But his complete number in the director’s cut is lovely, and since DVD is a much bigger market today than theatrical, I shouldn’t really feel bad for him (as I shouldn’t for Christopher Lee in THE RETURN OF THE KING). It was wonderful to see the footage restored.

Charles does the singing, Foxx does the playing. The orchestrations are full-bodied, and even replicate mic problems accurately in the club play-dates. Clearly Charles was in fine voice till the end. And thankfully he had the confidence to allow his character to be fully drawn, not white-washed as in the case of Jerry Lee Lewis supervising GREAT BALLS OF FIRE, a film which needed a more honest remake the day after it was released.

One thing that comes through loud and clear was how monumentally gifted and intelligent Charles was. He was even capable of creating all his backup singers’ voices if necessary (one of my favorite moments in the film). I urge you to pick up, as an accompaniment to RAY, the DVD RAY CHARLES LIVE AT THE MONTREUX JAZZ FESTIVAL, a 73-minute Pioneer Artists release. What is particularly special about this disc is that it has a commentary track by Charles. At one point, if memory serves, he admits that his band had to have over three hundred songs memorized, and had to be prepared to perform any of them at a moment’s notice, depending on his whim.

Cast:Ray Charles: Jamie Foxx
Della Bea: Kerry Washington
Margie Hendrix: Regina King
Jeff Brown: Clifton Powell
Joe Adams: Harry Lennix
Fathead Newman: Bokeem Woodbine
Mary Ann Fisher: Aunjanue Ellis
Young Ray: C.J. Sanders
Ahmet Artegun: Curtis Armstrong

Crew:
Director: Taylor Hackford
Writer: James L. White
Story by: Taylor Hackford, James L. White
Producers: Taylor Hackford, Stuart Benjamin, Howard Baldwin, Karen Baldwin. Executive producers: William J. Immerman, Jamie Rucker King
Director of photography: Pawel Edelman
Production designer: Stephen Altman
Music: Craig Armstrong
Costume designer: Sharen Davis
Editor: Paul Hirsch

DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures present a Parkes/MacDonald and Edge City production
R-Rated / 120 minutes

QUOTE: Cruise thrills in his first killer role and has found a worthy collaborator in director Michael Mann.

Hit man Vincent (Tom Cruise) is on a mission in Los Angeles: kill 5 people and then make a 6:00 A.M. flight out of LAX. He gets in Max’s (Jamie Foxx) taxi and offers him $600 to drive him around all night. Unfortunately, the first hit goes slightly array and a dead man lands on the hood of Max’s car. He now knows what Vincent does for a living. One down, four to go.

Nothing and nobody will stop Vincent. He’s under contract and will finish the job.

There are clever solutions to the obvious problem of why Max doesn’t just drive off once Vincent leaves to handle the next victim? When Vincent’s following two victims, federal witnesses in a high profile case, turn up at the city morgue the police get involved. Hard on Vincent and Max’s heels is narcotics detective Fanning (Mark Ruffalo – finally in a role that showcases his sexual appeal) who senses these deaths are no unlucky happenstance.

Cruise’s performance is skillful, mesmerizing, and does not condescend to the audience’s perception of him. Vincent is unwavering in his objective. He has discipline. He has mapped out why he kills and does not sentimentalize his career path. He actually makes a good point to Max: did the wholesale massacre of thousands in Rwanda mean anything to him? Did he join a protest? Send money to Greenpeace? Why does he care about the dead guy they put in the trunk? Maybe he deserved what he got.

Vincent doesn’t know the victims or what they did. He chats with Max like any other passenger who “kills time” in the back seat of a cab. In this way, he’s another fare going off to work. Yet, Vincent is proud of what he does. He takes Max along to witness his craft.

Max does not sit idly by listening to the radio while Vincent works. He tries a series of imaginative ruses to bravely foil Vincent’s killing. But Vincent works best while improvising.

Cruise’s performance is electrifying: He casts a menacing shadow while his absolute resolve is captivating. We want our heroes and villains to be single-minded. We don’t want killers with consciences. I noticed in seeing TROY again, and now COLLATERAL, that major movie star dialogue is meticulously crafted. Vincent has no throwaway lines. All his dialogue is cinematic architecture.

Jamie Foxx has the difficult role of a man who is a hard working underdog driving a cab for 12 years and dreaming of opening up a luxury limousine company. Foxx must exhibit a complex emotional range as he navigates through fear, shock and then, when forced by the circumstances, bravery.

Director Michael Mann once again captures an ice-cold L.A. with the same tonal brilliance as he did in HEAT. His ability to handle strong characters is his signature and he, along with screenwriter Stuart Beattie, design a fearless role for Cruise. In fact, with the exception of Cruise’s brilliant supporting role in MAGNOLIA, when has Cruise shown this much tough sex appeal?

The script’s contrivances – Max’s first passenger of the night just happens to be Vincent’s last victim – are not to be dwelled on here since there is an incredibly vibrant scene in a nightclub that makes COLLATERAL a sure-fire thrill.

Cast:
Vincent: Tom Cruise
Max: Jamie Foxx
Annie: Jada Pinkett Smith
Fanning: Mark Ruffalo
Richard Weldner: Peter Berg
Pedrosa: Bruce McGill
Ida: Irma P. Hall
Daniel: Barry Shabaka Henley

Credits:
Director: Michael Mann
Screenwriter: Stuart Beattie
Producers: Michael Mann, Julie Richardson
Executive producers: Frank Darabont, Rob Fried, Chuck Russell, Peter Guiliano
Directors of photography: Don Beebe, Paul Cameron
Production designer: David Wasco
Music: James Newton Howard
Co-producer: Michael Waxman
Costume designer: Jeffrey Kurland
Editors: Jim Miller, Paul Rubell