The most notable thing about "Miami Blues" is the characterization by Alec Baldwin as one of the more despicable psychos we've seen on the screen in awhile. The oddest aspect is that this guy is the lead character.
"Miami Blues" follows Baldwin as he flies from Los Angeles to Miami on a stolen credit card, promptly breaks the finger of a Hare Krishna in the airport - which, for some reason, kills him - and proceeds to steal goods and services for the next 90 minutes.
Baldwin adopts the name, if not the identity of one of his victims and takes up with a young hooker (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a woman who gives new meaning to the word "dumb." They rent a house together in the suburbs and attempt to live happily ever after.
Of course, unbeknownst to Leigh, Baldwin's "investment" business, as he describes his work, has more to do with low theft than high finance. He rolls robbers right after they've robbed.
Soon Baldwin's blissful life is interrupted by seedy homicide detective Fred Ward, whose main running character trait has to do with his removing his false teeth whenever he feels the urge - which is frequently.
Ward is on Baldwin's trail, but Baldwin turns the tables, beating Ward to a pulp and stealing his badge, handcuffs, gun and teeth. Soon he's posing as a cop, which makes him even bolder in robbing Miami robbers. And there are plenty of robbers out there. Everywhere Baldwin goes, it seems, a holdup is in progress.
One wonders how the Miami tourist bureau feels about this movie, since the streets seem to be so constantly crime-ridden and the cops extremely inept.
Eventually, of course, there is a bloody showdown between Ward and Baldwin. And Leigh is forced to wise up.
But in the end, one has to ask, what's the point?
There have been some compelling movies about anti-heroes and fascinating explorations of the nature of evil, probing characters who live lives of crime. But "Miami Blues" seems to be nothing more than B-grade exploitation, despite the A-grade cast.
Every now and then a bit of black humor creeps in, as when Baldwin purchases a water pistol early on and when, posing as a cop, he shoots a suspect and then tells him to freeze, but more often the tone is angry, mean-spirited and extremely unpleasant.
Further, despite Baldwin managing to paint an interesting portrait of a wacked-out psycho, both he and Ward seem very stiff, given more to artificial posturing than creating characters.
Leigh offers a more natural performance, but her character is just too stupid to be believed. "Saturday Night Live" fans will spot Nora Dunn as another homicide detective, but she has less to do than the furniture - and is less emotional.
There are more unpleasant ways to spend an evening than seeing this movie - but the list is short.
"Miami Blues," written and directed by George Armitage , is rated a hard R for considerable grotesque violence, sex, nudity and profanity.