I've thought the same thing. The movie version of Miami Vice had terrible dialogue ("I'm a fiend for mojitos") and a not so great story, but the photography was extraordinary and captured the reality of global commerce better than anything else I've seen or read (there's a great scene where a caravan of SUVs are driving through a bunch styrofoam chucks all over the street in the DR).
Not sure why Mann pulls this off though. Any ideas?
..............
The other day, I was discussing this with an old friend.
He's now a well-stationed director; you've probably seen one or more of his movies. I'm promised an "Entourage" experience at some point.
Anyway, his insight (following, and building upon something Ebert wrote while reviewing "Collateral") is that Mann excels at crafting perfect vignettes. These vignettes are perfect because Mann devotes the camera's whole attention to everything comprising a scene: a traffic light changing on an unused road, a malfunctioning halogen light, the sparks flying off a subway train's wheels.
This hyper-realism - a cinematic representation of the Buddhist notion of attentiveness - is, my friend insists, what gives the classic Mann moment its science fictional sheen.
It's what gives you the feeling you're seeing, perhaps for the first time, the usually hidden clockwork mechanism of the world machine.
.d.