Miami Vice is a action crime film [ 4 ] written, directed, and co-produced by Michael Mann. Foxx brought up the idea of a Miami Vice film to Mann during a party for Ali. This led Mann to revisit the series he co-produced. Like Collateral , which also starred Foxx, most of the film was shot with the Thomson Viper Filmstream Camera , while Super 35 was used for high-speed and underwater shots.
Miami Vice premiered in Los Angeles on July 20, The film received mixed reviews, with praise for Mann's directing and visual style and criticism for the serious storyline, though in subsequent years, its reputation among critics and filmmakers has grown, with critic Steven Hyden writing in that the film had become a cult favorite. While working an undercover prostitute sting operation in a nightclub to arrest a pimp named Neptune, Miami-Dade Police detectives James "Sonny" Crockett and Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs receive a frantic phone call from their former informant Alonzo Stevens.
Stevens reveals that he is leaving town, and, believing his wife Leonetta to be in immediate danger, asks Rico to check on her. Crockett learns that Stevens was working as an informant for the FBI but has been compromised. Tracking down Stevens through a vehicle transponder and aerial surveillance, Crockett and Tubbs stop him along I Stevens reveals that a Colombian cartel had become aware that Russian FSB operatives now dead were working undercover with the FBI, and had threatened to murder Leonetta via a C-4 necklace bomb if he did not confess.
Rico, learning of Leonetta's death by telephone call, tells Alonzo that he does not have to go home. Hearing this, the grief-stricken Stevens commits suicide by walking in front of an oncoming semi-truck. En route to the murder scene, Sonny and Rico receive a call from Lt. Martin Castillo and are instructed to stay away. Fujima reveals that the Colombian group part of the A. They continue the investigation by looking into go-fast boats coming from the Caribbean , delivering loads of narcotics from the Colombians.
They then coerce their Miami informant contact Nicholas into setting up a meet-and-greet with the cartel. Posing as highly skilled drug smugglers, Sonny and Rico offer their services to Yero, the cartel's security and intelligence man.
