Michael Mann is a voyeur. His best scenes, both written and directed, are of men and women sitting around and talking to each other. But these aren’t idle diner scenes, marked by colorful but trite dialogue exchanges and pop culture references. They take place in the VIP rooms of exclusive clubs, in mobile SUV offices, and in secret Colomibian warehouses. The people talking are more often than not at odds, and what isn’t said proves doubly as important as what is said.

This holds true for Miami Vice, and that may surprise a lot of people. The 2 hour and 10 minute movie is comprised mostly of conversations, plottings, dealings, and tracking shots of glamorous vehicles moving fast against breathtaking South Florida scenery. When the “action” starts it is brief and graphically violent. The protracted gunfights of Heat have given way to the sharper, starker, and much darker violence of Collateral. In short: If you want CGI explosion after CGI explosion, you will be disappointed. Fans of the trademark Mann dialogue-driven tension are in luck.

Detectives Sonny Crockett (Colin Farrell) and Ricardo Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) are partners in the Miami-Dade Vice Squad. An informant of theirs calls late one night, panicked and on the run. Turns out he’s also a snitch for the FBI and those he’s informing on have gotten wise to him. The undercover feds are killed in spectacular fashion, and now the FBI is at a loss. They turn to Crockett and Tubbs—who till now have been left in the dark about the operation—to see it through. By any means necessary.

The road is a twisted one for Crockett and Tubbs, and will take them from snitch lowlifes in Miami to Colombian druglords. The real story of Miami Vice lies in uncovering the web of informants, gangs, and technology linking the druglord in Colombia to the street dealers of Miami. It’s a procedural, in other words, fueled by slick presentation and attractive lies.

Mann brings a sense of authenticity to material like this. Every line of dialogue feels true, and every setting drips sleaze and sun-drenched glamour. The restrained use of digital film only adds to the spell; many scenes feel spied-upon rather than staged, as if we were just around the corner, peering in on someone else’s strange and exciting lifestyle. This strategy is key to the appeal of Miami Vice, both in the 80’s and now. We want Crockett and Tubbs to remain the good guys, no matter what. We also don’t mind that they enjoy the fruits of the criminal life without becoming criminals themselves… so long as they take us along for the ride. Call it the ultimate backstage pass to a life most of us will never see and, for all we know, doesn’t exist.

Miami Vice isn’t Michael Mann’s best film. Sonny’s courtship of drug kingpin (queenpin?) Isabella (Gong Li) drags on longer than necessary. At times it feels as though there are simply too many characters. Nonetheless, it remains a smart film that’s authentic in sound and texture. In this summer wasteland where brain-dead sequels, tepid comedies, and uninspiring “epics” rake in piles of cash, a summer blockbuster with actual brains is almost more than we deserve.