'Miami' Heat

''Yeah? Did Michael say that? Really?'' Colin Farrell laughs. It's mid-July and the actor is reclining on a couch on the Universal lot in Los Angeles. He looks like he's lost about 20 pounds since the shoot. He's relaxed and clean-shaven; his body toned and his eyes flash with amusement. He looks great. ''A sequel? That madman. I'd definitely think about it.''

Farrell is one of Hollywood's genuine good guys. Smart. Ridiculously charming. Undeniably talented. And the above potential lapse of judgment aside, it's nice to see the actor is looking sharp. Because while everyone else on Vice was focusing on the roar of hurricane winds and the pop-pop of errant gunshots, a quieter truth was emerging: The 29-year-old Irishman was falling apart.

It should come as no surprise that the two stars partied throughout the shoot. Both Foxx and Farrell are young guys who make a very public point of grabbing life by the short hairs. A Michael Mann project tends to attract this kind of person — someone who wants to ride Ferraris at 180 miles per hour, fake drug runs off the coast of Miami, and jet to Cuba to go dancing and drinking.

''I ain't gonna lie. There were times where tsst tsst tsst was your alarm clock,'' says Foxx, describing the dance beats that would occasionally tell him that morning had arrived. ''But do that once or twice too many and you’re in trouble. You know that feeling like 'I gotta go see the principal'? I got that again.''

And the partying? By most accounts, the carousing never seemed excessive. Mann says neither Farrell nor Foxx ever showed up unprepared. And interviews with cast and crew members sketch a picture of two actors who intermingled freely with people at all levels of production. Farrell was especially well liked. But by the end of the shoot, something was wrong.

As a condition of being interviewed for this piece, Farrell declined to discuss anything related to his seeking treatment for drug and alcohol problems following Miami Vice. For his part, Mann will say only that ''it happened after the movie wrapped.'' But the fact is that after finishing off that final shoot'em-up, Farrell flew down to Uruguay, shot six days of love scenes with Gong Li, and — a mere 12 hours after wrapping the film — was on a plane home and entering an addiction facility.

''I never saw drug use,'' says production assistant Angie Lee Cobbs. ''Everybody keeps saying there was, but I never saw that. It was just, you know, having a jolly good time at a bar, drinking. When we heard the rehab thing, it was like 'Oh, wow.' You gotta give him credit for admitting it and doing something about it.''

So there was no big party when Mann called cut for the last time on Dec. 10. Nothing to note that the trial that was Miami Vice was over. No moment of celebration or collective backslapping for surviving the hurricanes, the shootings, the personal problems, the spectacular turns of ill fortune. It seems only now, on the eve of its release, that the people involved have the ability to reflect on what happened over those long months.

''If something wasn't adverse, I don't think anyone on this crew knew how to handle it,'' Mann says, moments before heading back into the editing room. ''If it wasn't too hot and too humid and the cameras weren’t breaking down and we weren't stuck in the back of an airplane being thrown around and sweating like pigs, we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves.''

''It was a very strange end,'' adds Gong Li. ''We just sort of walked away. A lot of people didn't really say goodbye to each other. They just left quietly. It was finished, and then it was over.''