Classic bete noire: The genre persists in many forms.Vice is not a "slow" movie, nor is it pedantic. Vice does require intense attention to each participant and the environment, as it should, for the writer and director show common people in extraordinary circumstances.Madsen and Hanna may not seem "common", but see them at the bottom of the ladder in their environment. The acting is exquisite, the sets sublime (in the sense that they disappear and yet contribute a force on the viewer), and all is wholly believable.Vice is paced to the stark reality of an undercover existence, of competing loyalties, of personal trust and values, of redemption. Best of all: It takes until the very end of this film, but there is resolution.A hard film, but well worth the effort.

Michael Madsen is a hard living cop that finds his crew dying after a drug bust goes wrong. Madsen does his best, but the film seems to get away from him. I don't know if its because he's not strong enough to be lead character but he comes off the worse for ware in a good but unremarkable film which requires little of him other than to talk tough and look mean which reciting meaningful narration. Actually I'm picking on the writing which is actually pretty good and I liked some of the pithy lines of dialog and philosophical narration. Actually the trouble is Madsen who just sort of stands there and broods in a leather jacket. Better is Daryl Hannah looking very good and mean with her hair dyed jet black. Good but not great, worth a look in mindless mode.

I picked this movie up at a mickey d's red box and i wasn't expecting anything special. I figured if it was i would have heard about it. What i got was an OK cop movie with a kick ass cast. Madsen was awesome especially in the overdubbed readings. It made me wish he would have been max Payne instead of mark. Hannah managed to look about 10 years younger and she played the shy girl cop very well. But what made the movie for me was the addition of Alex Krycek( nick lea ) from the x-files. That put a huge smile on my face. So what holds this movie back? Well the writing was pretty weak and the story had more than a couple holes. I liked the idea of a drug bust that changes everyones lives through paranoia and broken trust. The thing that really brought the movie down though was the surprisingly bad acting in some scenes. Mostly scenes with Hannah and Madden. The car scene where walker and Sampson get into an argument and walker says, "do you wanna f**k with me" was possibly the worst scene of Michael Madsens career. not a bad movie. You should see it just for Nick Lea and Madsen together.

"Vice" is a low budget cop noir movie where everyone is flawed, corrupt and/or dying.It tries to be another "LA Confidential" or even "Street Kings" but falls short due to its simple characters and sets and limited plot.Like other cop noir, this one begins with a voice-over. Michael Madsen's "Walker" stands in a church observing how no one is really alive. We're just all dead or dying. From there we jump to streetwalker sex and then a drug bust gone bad. During the take down, one of the dealers escapes in a bloody shootout - setting up the rest of the movie. Cops involved in the bust start dying and the Feds come in to investigate.So who's killing the vice cops? Is it vengeful drug dealers - or members of the unit with secrets to hide? Or maybe it's a homicide cop on the take? Soon no one trusts anyone and everyone is a suspect.We'd care more about the answers to those questions if the movie had more depth or complexity. It does not. The main character, Madsen's "Walker," is the typical blunt instrument. His main skill is dogged determination. His job is to find out who's killing his vice detectives – and why. The rest of his crew is similarly one dimensional, making it hard to care about anyone as they die.The limited sets contribute to this feeling of apathy. Walker moves in circle that soon becomes repetitive. It's back and forth between the cop shop, a bar and his car. He's like a player caught in an endless video game loop with no way out.The best part of this film is watching Executive Producer (yes EP) Daryl Hannah slum around. Her "Salt" is a pick-up truck driving undercover narc who looks like Liv Tyler on a bad hair day. The most innocent of the vice cops, Hannah's "Salt" spends most of the movie with her beautiful baby blues covered by black bangs as if she doesn't want to see all the corruption around her.The movie does end with a nice twist and since everyone has secrets, there are enough red herring to keep you guessing until the end.My advice, get this one when you have a free video rental coupon.