Miami Blues (1990) Real badge. Real gun. Fake cop. USA 1990 Color (DeLuxe) 7.1/10 (108 votes) Produced by: Tristes Tropiques Certification: USA:R / UK:18 / Germany:18 Language: English Genre/keyword: Crime / Thriller / based-on-novel / police Runtime: USA:97 / USA:99 Sound Mix: Dolby Distributed by: Orion Pictures Corporation Directed by George Armitage Cast Alec Baldwin .... Frederick J. Frenger Jr. Jennifer Jason Leigh .... Susie Waggoner Fred Ward .... Sergeant Hoke Moseley Cecilia Pérez-Cervera .... Stewardess Georgie Cranford .... Little Boy Edward Saxon .... Krishna Ravindra José Pérez (II) .... Pablo Obba Babatundé .... Blink Willie Charles Napier .... Sergeant Bill Henderson Written by George Armitage Charles Willeford (novel) Cinematography by Tak Fujimoto Music by Gary Chang Production Design by Maher Ahmad Costume Design by Eugenie Bafaloukos Film Editing by Craig McKay Produced by Ronald M. Bozman (co-producer) Jonathan Demme Gary Goetzman William Horberg (associate) Edward Saxon (executive) Kenneth Utt (co-producer) Fred Ward (executive) Links with other titles features "Green Acres" (1965) Critics ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Roger Ebert They're looking for the right tone in "Miami Blues," and they don't find it very often, but when they do, you can see what they were looking for. The movie wants to be an off-center comedy, a lopsided cops-and-robbers movie where everybody has a few screws loose. But so much love is devoted to creating the wacko loonies in the cast that we're left with a set of personality profiles, not characters. The film stars Alec Baldwin, fresh from "The Hunt for Red October," as Fred Frenger, an ex-con who has just arrived in Miami looking for a fresh start. He gets started off on the wrong foot. At the airport, he's approached by a Hare Krishna, and he bends the guy's finger back until it breaks. Not nice, especially since the cult member dies of shock. Frenger is a thief, con man and cheat. He also is incredibly reckless and will get himself into situations a dopey high school kid would know enough to avoid. He wanders through the world looking for suitcases to steal, wallets to lift, identification papers he can use. Nothing much is planned, and most of his jobs depend on sheer blind luck. One piece of luck, sort of, is when he meets Susie, a hooker played by Jennifer Jason Leigh. She's a student at Dade Junior College, working her way through school, and she isn't very bright. In fact, she's so slow to catch on that conversation with her involves saying things, and then explaining them, and then telling her it doesn't matter anyway. Fred Ward is Sgt. Hoke Moseley, assigned to the case. His life is composed of equal parts of indigestion, alimony and bureaucracy. Some simpleminded detective work leads him to Frenger. Fred and Susie, now living together, invite him to dinner and he stays gratefully, eating their chops and drinking their beer and belching cheerfully. He figures maybe Frenger broke the Hare Krishna's fingers but didn't mean to kill him, and, truth to tell, he isn't very worked up over the case - not until Frenger visits his hotel room, beats him senseless and steals his badge, gun and false teeth. That's going too far. Armed with identification as a cop, Frenger turns into a loose cannon, free-lancing all over town. He busts up robberies, steals from previous victims, flashes his badge and takes advantage of that split-second of doubt and guilt that's felt by the average citizen when anybody flashes a badge. And then the situation escalates as Frenger stupidly gets into more and more trouble, and Susie - who never was a very good hooker, but has convinced herself she could be a good wife - slowly realizes she is living with a very dangerous man. The actors struggle manfully with their roles. Baldwin, who is good at playing intelligence, is not so good here at playing an ex-con with a screw loose. Ward does a better job with the police sergeant; in movies like this and the underrated "UFO," he sits back and takes everything in and plays the cynic who will really bother you only if you really bother him. Jennifer Jason Leigh is another actress who has an easier time of playing smart (as she did in "Heart of Midnight") than playing dumb. In "Miami Blues," I think she plays too dumb - so dim that even the characters begin commenting on how she doesn't pick up on every little thing. The movie was written and directed by George Armitage and produced by Jonathan Demme. Both are graduates of the Roger Corman low-budget exploitation assembly line of the 1960s, when Armitage directed "Private Duty Nurses" while Demme was writing "Angels Hard as They Come." Demme has gone on to develop his own idiosyncratic and likable directing style in movies like "Married to the Mob" and "Something Wild." The problem is, Demme can do those movies but most people can't - and there are stretches where "Miami Blues" plays like a Demme film with sprung rhythm. Miami Blues (STAR) (STAR) Fred Frenger Alec Baldwin Sgt. Hoke Moseley Fred Ward Susie Waggoner Jennifer Jason Leigh Ellita Sanchez Nora Dunn Sgt. Bill Henderson Charles Napier Orion Pictures presents a film written and directed by George Armitage. Produced by Jonathan Demme and Gary Goetzman. Based on the novel by Charles Willeford. Edited by Craig McKay. Photography by Tak Fujimoto. Music by Gary Chang. Running time: 97 minutes. Classified R. At local theaters. MIAMI BLUES A film review by Shane R. Burridge Copyright 1996 Shane R. Burridge (1990) 97m. In George Armitage's adaptation of Charles Willeford's novel, Alec Baldwin plays a wanted ex-con whose devil-may-care attitude surprisingly hasn't yet led to his capture. Upon reaching Miami he meets up with ingenue hooker Jennifer Jason Leigh, adopts her as his fiancee, and sets about supplementing their income with a string of petty thefts. Upon acquiring the cuffs, badge, and other accouterments of cop Fred Ward, he discovers that larceny has never been easier. Disarming black comedy-drama stands out among others in the pack because its offbeat plot turns make it hard for the viewer to match a rhythm to it. The sex scene we all expect comes earlier than expected, the initial meeting between Baldwin and Ward isn't how we anticipate it, and Baldwin, the prime proponent of the film's randomness, does not move to a predictable plan - he is psychotic enough to kill on a whim, yet never rises above purse-snatching and break-ins. What's interesting is that while Baldwin is the cause of so much random violence towards others, he is at the same time the victim of spontaneous, violent acts. It's not surprising that his dismissive attitude treats everything as if it were a game: Baldwin roleplays confrontations with himself (a la TAXI DRIVER), lies continually, plays cop as soon as he gets hold of a badge, and plays house with Leigh, whom he tells "Call me Junior". It's an appropriate nickname, and Leigh is a suitably ditzy companion for him. In one picture-postcard scene, Baldwin and Leigh watch couples happily playing with a frisbee against a Miami beach sunset. No sooner have the two of them set up house than they are playing with a frisbee outside on the front lawn. When Leigh, with an older and wiser glint in her eye, tosses the frisbee aside at the film's conclusion, she, for one, knows that the dream is over. Unlike Junior, Ward, world-weary and only one week from retirement, manages to finish what he started. Ward and his world are mundane and orderly, and the antithesis of Baldwin, a character out of sync in a world out of sync. While convention dictates that the cop and his quarry remain separate for the bulk of the film we nevertheless feel a connection between them. Their dinner together, in which Baldwin is cagey but jumpy, and Ward is either dumb or just playing dumb, is a highlight. Baldwin's character is always interesting (how many films have you seen where the criminal accompanies a house burglary with an improvisational haiku?), Leigh somehow manages to play superficiality with a sense of depth, and Ward fits into his role effortlessly. Weird coincidence: Baldwin steals a badge and passes himself off as "Sergeant Mosely". Two years earlier in MIDNIGHT RUN, Robert De Niro steals a badge as passes himself off as "Agent Mosely". Has anybody else noticed this? ‘Miami Blues’ (R) By Desson Howe Washington Post Staff Writer April 20, 1990 It just plain hurts to be alive in "Miami Blues," and it's frequently painful to watch. Close to the beginning, criminal Alec Baldwin breaks the finger of a Hare Krishna follower who's bugging him at the airport. Close to the end, Baldwin's fingers get macheted at the tips. In between, Baldwin snaps wrists, kicks heads, shoots people dead, wounds others and, in an impromptu backroom operation that will have all but the hardiest viewers groaning in their seats, forces a woman to stitch his gored eyebrow together. Certainly the going is grim, and there's nothing socially redeeming about "Blues" whatsoever, but writer/director George Armitage's movie is also funny, stirring and full of great moments done in the pop-arty, lightly macabre spirit of producer Jonathan Demme. There's a tremendous performance from Baldwin, who puts beguiling, sleepy-eyed presence into the role of Frederick J. Frenger Jr., an otherwise grisly, "Scarface"-type psycho. Fred Ward, as seedy Hoke Moseley, the cop on his trail, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, as the naively trusting hooker from Okeechobee, Fla., who marries Frenger, do more than offset Baldwin, they goose him to get better. Baldwin does get better -- as his character gets sociopathologically worse. As Frenger, a k a Junior, he's a lifelong criminal just out of a California jail and just into Miami who plunders the world of its cars, wallets and pocketbooks with the I-do-this-every-day ease of a K mart shopper, often stealing those items from surprised muggers, robbers and drug dealers. But Baldwin's problems begin from the outset, when that Krishna follower dies of shock from the fingerbreaking, and wily (and toothless) Ward starts asking questions. They proliferate when Baldwin brashly attacks Ward, commandeers his gun, badge and, in a fit of spite, his choppers, and goes on the rampage masquerading as a cop. Ward, now pushed to retrieve his dignity and his teeth, goes after Baldwin gums and nail, while Leigh really begins to wonders what it is, exactly, her husband does all day. The joy of "Blues" is in the way Armitage mixes in the comic with the noir. Trying to help Leigh with her haiku-writing homework for instance, Baldwin composes some lines of his own, while he's on the job: "Breaking, entering/The dark and lonely place -- places/Finding a big gun/Smelling like a rose . . . ." Later, when Baldwin has beaten Ward and he's fishing around the cop's apartment for valuables, a travel poster on the wall blithely greets him with "We're glad you're in Miami." Then there's the convenience-store scene in which Baldwin, after saving a cashier from an armed assailant, is pole-axed to the floor when the vengeful robber drives his pickup straight into the storefront. Before leaving, the dazed, heavily bleeding Baldwin -- who was trying to do some shopping when this all happened -- asks, "Where is the whipping cream?" Copyright The Washington Post ‘Miami Blues’ (R) By Rita Kempley Washington Post Staff Writer April 20, 1990 There's something wild about "Miami Blues," something reminiscent of Jonathan Demme's haunted birthday party style. Though written and directed by George Armitage, it is Demme's first outing as a producer -- a yarn about a psychotic ex-con, a naive prostitute and a battered old cop that's spicy, breathless and way off kilter. It's the detective genre reinvented, Ozzie and Harriet packing heat. Based on the pulp novel by Charles Willeford, "Miami Blues" pits the wily veteran detective, Hoke Moseley (Fred Ward), against the brute ingenuity of ex-convict Junior Frenger (Alec Baldwin), both of whom undergo identity crises when Junior steals the detective's gun, badge and dentures. Junior turns into Robin Hood without scruples, interrupting robberies and making off with the booty himself. He further confuses matters by playing American Dream with Jennifer Jason Leigh as Susie, a countrified girl who is putting herself through college as a hooker. How else is a girl to earn a buck? Junior engages her services, falls in love with and quickly marries the waif, whose dearest wish is to live behind a white picket fence. While Junior is out committing mayhem, she makes pies and tidies the house. She's not married to the mob, and this is not a cracked comic romance, but it is love and death played for laughs. For all its commonplace ingredients, "Miami Blues" is uncommonly entertaining, thanks in large part to Ward, Baldwin and Leigh, who give gutty, energetic performances. Ward looks like a junkyard dog, a veteran of losing battles, toothless from chewing on bullets. He's taken a page or three from Columbo's notebook, but there's a distinctive down and out to this rumpled shamus, so unlike his rival's crew-cut ruthlessness. Baldwin has the boyish charms of serial killer Ted Bundy. He's as nervous as we are, waiting for the plot to unravel. Threads dangle, but then we know who dunit -- and so does the detective -- from the get-go. It's the atmosphere, the faded pastels of Coral Gables, the Miami Nice just out of the villain's reach that are so provocative. "I want a regular life. I want to go to work in the mornings, and sometimes at night, and come home to a hot meal and a clean house," he explains to Susie. She is all wistfulness and freckled sincerity in Leigh's hands, and she urges Junior to give up crime. She half-believes him when he tells her he has become an investor, which begs comparisons with "Pretty Woman." Jailbait and jailbird, streetwalker and Wall Streeter: Nobody makes an honest living anymore, Hollywood tells us. Armitage, a Demme pal, has been struggling to escape B-moviedom for the past decade. But "Miami Blues," panicky and sleek as a fire engine, is more than a snappy comeback. It's a centered lament, a screwball thriller about making ends meet, about how even an armed robber can't afford the American Dream. "Miami Blues" is rated R for sex scenes, profanity and violence. Copyright The Washington Post MIAMI BLUES A film review by Rogers Cadenhead Copyright 1990 Rogers Cadenhead Alec Baldwin, the actor whose performance in THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER has catapulted him into the rank of leading men, does his level best to sink back down in the odd character roles with his performance in MIAMI BLUES. In a riveting, comic style that combines the lunacy of Jack Nicholson's Joker with a cold intelligence, Baldwin plays a rotten SOB in a way that's fun -- at times hysterical -- to watch. This film, co-produced by the mind behind SOMETHING WILD and MARRIED TO THE MOB, has a lot of good-spirited eccentricity in common with those two pictures. But there's a core of violent meanness to MIAMI BLUES that can't be denied. Senses of sex and killing are kept on-screen too long for the dark comedy to be much of a lark at times. But it is the relationships, and not the plot, that make MIAMI BLUES one of the best spring releases. Alec Baldwin's psycho, his former hooker girlfriend (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and the poor cop (Fred Ward) are such fully realized characters that their interaction is, on its own, fun to watch even if nothing is happening. A scene between Ward and Leigh in a supermarket, and Baldwin and Leigh at a dinner date, are both truly captivating moments. Even minor supporting parts, such as a female cop who has disdain for Ward because he loses his gun, badge and false teeth to Baldwin, have fire in them -- the female cop and Ward have this unspoken sexual dynamic motivating their treatment of each other. The script never addresses it, but in a scene where the female cop arrives at Ward's door, dressed in an evening gown for her impending date, and Ward answers in his boxer shorts and underwear, there's a weird game going on between them. That's an example of why this film is so good. But there are also a few examples of why it can be so bad. Two shockingly violent episodes occur in the film -- not ferocious but still unnerving to the point that entire rows of audience members were cringing and speaking to the screen (when most folks don't ever do that sort of thing) -- and the entire film has a level of violence akin to the MIAMI VICE show and many action films, though MIAMI BLUES is not an action film, per se. If an orgy of violence wasn't such a regular occurrence in movies, MIAMI BLUES would be regarded as one of the year's most inspired films. But because we Americans are fed so much violence, the novelty -- and the amount of relevance -- of MIAMI BLUES' fable of crime and consequence is a little thin. But for the performances of the three principal performers, and some unusual film techniques, it's definitely worth seeing. Rogers