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To me, this movie is perfection.

Boring

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Not quite a great film, but an entertainingly odd and unique one. Full of rough violence and noir situations, but played mostly as very dark comedy.Alec Baldwin is very good indeed as a killer sociopath who somehow is also very likable when he's not robbing and beating people. Fred Ward is terrific as the scraggly cat of a cop who chases Baldwin down after Baldwin steals his badge, gun and false teeth, and starts to run around pretending to be a cop himself. And Jennifer Jason Leigh underplays to great effect as a pretty, dumb hooker, who falls for Baldwin, and doesn't figure out just what kind of dangerous, crazy guy he is until very late in the game. That said, it doesn't add up to a lot emotionally, Leigh's role is underwritten, and there are several gaping logic holes the film just ignores (Ward has dinner early on with Baldwin and Leigh, clearly knows he's a criminal, but just leaves?!?)But - those flaws noted - I've seen it twice, and fully enjoyed myself both times.

One of the most over-looked, under-rated 90's noir killer-on-the-loose films of the times, that had Oscar all over it. The most Elmore Leonard like film to date which says this stands taller than most movies with guns and cars. Alec Baldwin displays the marks of genius here, over the top, beyond the fringes of insanity and then he pulls back from sociopath to sweet, chummy boyfriend to his thespian equal, Jennifer Jason Leigh, who plays the dim-witted,sweet girlfriend forever to endearing believability. A twist on the Bonnie and Clyde match-up, as this Bonnie, Leigh never catches on to the pathological insanity of her boyfriend. "Miami Blues" takes the glamour out of Miami in the 1980's Alec Baldwin shines as "Junior" in this offbeat, quirky, action/crime/comedy adventure. That sounds like an odd combination, and it is just that unique combination that really makes this film work. Although George Armitage is the director of this film, the entire cinematography, mood. Music, quirky camera angles, and cast spells Jonathan Demme all the way. He is the credited producer of this film, but I imagine he certainly had a lot to do with the directing and casting as well. You can see all Demme favorites here in small cameo roles, as in his previous "Married To The Mob", and "Something Wild" (see my reviews). Charles Napier, a welcome Demme mainstay, is in a peripheral role here as a colleague of Wards' Mosley, but he's just one of many familiar faces that show up unexpectedly throughout the film."Miami Blues" is a unique blend of comedy, and action crime thriller that will get your attention with it's visual flash, and hold your interest with its well paced plot and odd characters. It's a forgotten sleeper that should not be missed.Overall rating: 9 out of 10.

A below average crime thriller/comedy hybrid. Alec Baldwin moves to Miami, steals a cop's identity, falls in with a dizzy hooker and spends the rest of the movie committing a few random crimes and trying to evade capture from inept detective Fred Ward. And that's about all that happens, nothing of any real consequence or worth. The gags fall flat, the story goes nowhere and it's instantly forgettable.Baldwin isn't convincing as the bad boy, Jennifer Jason Leigh is pretty good, and Fred Ward deserved better than this hokum. The biggest problem I had with the film is it was trying to be two things, a comedy and a thriller. Trouble is it wasn't remotely thrilling or funny.

One of the great scenes in this movie is Jennifer Jason Leigh's defense of her husband's good qualities.I just watched the 1970s BBC drama based on Trollope's 'Palliser' novels, and there's a remarkably similar character: Ferdinand Lopez appears as an 'adventurer' who, in the end, is a victim just like Junior Frenger. Both are a bit psycho, and seduced by their dream of success. Both end in similar ways, and both are defended, at the end, in remarkably similar speeches by their wives. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Willeford read Trollope, or at least watched the television adaptation, whose success helped to put public television on the map.