Jamie Foxx: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

4. Ricardo Tubbs €“ Miami Vice

Foxx's second effort with Michael Mann was nowhere near as good as his first, and is downright ridiculous to boot. It's not uncharitable to say such a thing €“ if anything can personify the idea of an utterly unnecessary reboot, it's Miami Vice. Originally a TV series with colourful characters and even more colourful shirts, the whole thing was about solving crimes in exotic locales. However, when Mann got hold of it, its less serious, TV-friendly edges were sanded down and replaced with a washed-out, dour seriousness, matched up against a gallingly slow and incomprehensible plot. Anyone would look stupid in such an ill-thought-out film, and it's to Foxx's discredit that he happens to be in the eye of the storm as Ricardo Tubbs. Twisting the knife in the actor's already doomed performance was the fact that the integral ingredient on which the whole film lives or dies €“ his chemistry with Colin Farrell's James Crockett €“ is frankly non-existent. Farrell's many things, but his continually chequered CV shows he's just not the man you want holding up an action film, and there's simply no spark with Foxx here. For all its faults, the film probably could've been saved if there was, yet that's sadly not the case €“ it's all grim scowls and self-regarding badass-ness, and it's all so vary grating. A true failure from top to bottom.