Based on the 1980s TV action/drama, this update focuses on vice detectives Crockett and Tubbs as their respective personal and professional lives become dangerously intertwined.
Ricardo Tubbs is urbane and dead smart. He lives with Bronx-born Intel analyst Trudy, as they work undercover transporting drug loads into South Florida to identify a group responsible for three murders. Sonny Crockett [to the untrained eye, his presentation may seem unorthodox, but procedurally, he is sound] is charismatic and flirtatious until - while undercover working with the supplier of the South Florida group - he gets romantically entangled with Isabella, the Chinese-Cuban wife of an arms and drugs trafficker. The best undercover identity is oneself with the volume turned up and restraint unplugged. The intensity of the case pushes Crockett and Tubbs out onto the edge where identity and fabrication become blurred, where cop and player become one - especially for Crockett in his romance with Isabella and for Tubbs in the provocation of an assault on those he loves.—achinn
After a tragic security breach in the Joint Inter-Agency Task Force (JIATF), the FBI ask for help from the Miami authorities, who are not part of the compromised group. This assignment goes to Detectives James 'Sonny' Crockett and Ricardo 'Rico' Tubbs. Going undercover as offshore boat racers and outlaw smugglers Sonny Burnett and Rico Cooper, they take on the narcotrafficking network of the mysterious Archangel de Jesus Montoya-Londono and his Cuban Chinese banker Isabella. The intensity of the case pushes Crockett and Tubbs out onto the edge where identity and fabrication become blurred, where cop and player become one - especially when Crockett falls for Isabella, and when there is an assault on Tubbs's loved ones.—Anonymous
When an informer, his family and two FBI agents are killed by an international gang of drug dealers, Detectives James 'Sonny' Crockett and Ricardo 'Rico' Tubbs are assigned to work undercover for the FBI in a joint operation to disclose which agency leaked the information to the criminals. They plot a scheme to approach with their team of agents to the manager José Yero and later to the druglord Arcángel de Jesús Montoya. Along the mission, Sonny meets the accountant, investor and mistress of Montoya, Isabella, and after a romantic affair, they fall in love for each other, blurring his professional commitment with his personal feelings.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Drugs are being brought into Miami via speedboats that deliver them to the cartel through the shipyard.
While working an undercover prostitute sting operation to arrest a pimp named Neptune (Isaach De Bankole), Miami-Dade Police detectives (MDPD) James "Sonny" Crockett (Colin Farrell) and Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) receive a frantic phone call from their former informant Alonzo Stevens (John Hawkes). Stevens reveals that he is planning to leave town. Stevens believes his wife Leonetta to be in immediate danger and asks Rico to check on her. Crockett learns that Stevens was working as an informant for the FBI but has been compromised.
Crockett and Tubbs quickly contact the FBI Special Agent in Charge John Fujima (Ciarán Hinds) and warn him about Stevens' safety. Fujima reveals that Stevens was working undercover with the drug cartels and had set up a meet and greet at the Miami docks that very night. At the meet and greet, the 2 FBI agents posing as buyers are gunned down by members of the cartel who already knew that FBI agents were posing as their buyers.
Tracking down Stevens through a vehicle transponder and aerial surveillance, Crockett and Tubbs stop him along I-95. Stevens reveals that a Colombian cartel knew that Russian undercover were working with the FBI from the start and had threatened that Leonetta would be murdered via a C-4 necklace bomb if he did not confess. Stevens admits that he gave up the FBI agents to protect Leonetta.Rico, learning of Leonetta's death by telephone call, tells Alonzo that he does not have to go home. Hearing this, the grief-stricken Stevens commits suicide by walking in front of an oncoming semi-truck.
En route to the murder scene, Sonny and Rico receive a call from Lt. Castillo (Barry Shabaka Henley) and are instructed to stay away. He tells them to meet him downtown, where they are introduced to John Fujima, head of the Florida Joint Inter-Agency Task Force between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the FBI.
An angry Crockett and Tubbs berate Fujima for the errors committed and inquire as to why the MDPD were not involved. Fujima also yells that he lost 3 men at the meet and greet.Fujima reveals that the Colombian group is highly sophisticated and run by Jose Yero (John Ortiz), initially thought to be the cartel's leader. Fujima, Crockett and Tubbs think about strategies on how to infiltrate the cartels and hurt them back. Yero is a supplier to the cartel and brings his drugs into US with speedboats. Crockett and Tubbs decide to get into the cartels through Yero.
Fujima enlists Crockett and Tubbs, making them Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force deputies, to help, and they continue the investigation by looking into "go-fast boats" coming from the Caribbean, delivering loads of narcotics from the Colombians. They steal Yero's entire shipment that he just unloaded to Miami docks and destroy his boats. They then use their Miami informant contact Nicholas (Eddie Marsan) to set up a meet and greet with the cartel.
Posing as drug smugglers "Sonny Burnett" and "Rico Cooper", the two offer their services to Yero. They find out Yero is the cartel's security and intel man. After a high-tension meeting, they pass screening and are introduced to Archangel De Jesus Montoya (Luis Tosar), kingpin of drug trafficking in South Florida. In the course of their investigation, Crockett and Tubbs learn that the cartel is using the Aryan Brotherhood gang to distribute drugs and is supplying them with state-of-the-art weaponry.
Meanwhile, Crockett tries to gather further evidence from Montoya's financial adviser and lover, Isabella (Gong Li), but ends up starting a secret romance with her while on a trip by speedboat to Cuba. At a club, the two dance closely, as observed by Yero. Afterward, Crockett and Isabella discuss the possibility and impossibility of running away together.
Tubbs begins to worry that Crockett may be getting too deeply involved in his undercover role and fears for the safety of the team. Those fears are soon realized as Trudy (Naomie Harris), the unit's intelligence agent, is kidnapped by the Aryan Brotherhood gang, and her life is threatened with a bomb the same way Leonetta's was unless the loads Crockett and Tubbs were delivering are directly handed over to the AB.Tubbs was in a romantic relationship with Trudy.
With Lt. Castillo's help due to hearing aircraft noise down the phone and clues given by Trudy, the unit triangulates Trudy's location to a mobile home in a trailer park near an airport. After Tubbs grabs a discarded pizza box from a trash can to have an excuse to knock on the door, pretending to be delivering for Milano's Pizza and perform a rescue.But she is critically injured in the aftermath when Tubbs fails to clear her in time from the mobile home and the bomb explodes destroying the building, as Tubbs encouraged Trudy to stay put to avoid gunfire.
Soon afterward, Yero reveals Isabella's betrayal to Montoya and captures her. In the showdown, Crockett and Tubbs face off against Yero, his men, and the Aryan Brotherhood in a shipyard at the port of Miami.
After the face-off, Crockett begins to call in backup. When Isabella sees his police shield and sees him using the radio, she comes to the realization that he is undercover. Betrayed, she demands that Crockett tell her who he really is.
After the gunfight, Crockett takes her to a police safe-house and tells her she will have to leave the country and return to her home in Cuba. Crockett arranges for Isabella to leave the country and return home to Cuba, thus avoiding arrest.As Crockett and Isabella stare at each other while Isabella is on a boat slowly drifting off, Crockett takes one last glance, walks away, and drives off.
Meanwhile, Tubbs is in the hospital holding Trudy's hand as she grasps his, signifying that she is recovering from her coma. Isabella is shown again on the boat crying, while Crockett is headed into the entrance of the hospital to visit Trudy.
