Mann has done something transformative with Farrell: The Irish actor has never had this much charisma and natural authority in a role, and as he navigates that gray area between Crockett's real identity and his fabricated one, revealing subtle fissures in the character's cocksure facade, he's fascinating to watch.

While it never approaches the richness and gravity of a great Mann film like "Heat," Miami Vice blurs the thin blue line to similar effect, and he features a couple of bravura setpieces, including a tense raid on an enemy hideout and a shootout with chaotic, you-are-there immediacy. If only all summer movies were this majestically slight.

It's a sensational trip -- gorgeous, gaga.

The two best words to describe the 2006 motion picture Miami Vice are "stylish" and "intense."

As entertaining as some of it is, is so cool that it's almost too cool. It takes the sin, and much of the juice, out of vice.