Miami Blues

Armitage's adaptation of Charles Willeford's Miami Blues is a movie introduction to Hoke Moseley of the Miami Police Department, a middle-aged Homicide sergeant harried by alimony and sporting a set of dentures made for him on the cheap by the technician who makes false teeth for the Miami Dolphins. Like Elmore Leonard's, Willeford's world is very precise about economics; when Hoke is hospitalised by the blithe psychopath Junior Frenger (Baldwin) - who steals his gun, badge and, cruelly, his teeth - he has trouble settling his medical bill. Meanwhile Junior plays cop in the metropolis and house with an infantile hooker, while Hoke tries to trap him. Ward is physically fine for Hoke, Baldwin a wired Junior, and best of all is Leigh's hooker, but it doesn't quite translate to the screen. Willeford didn't write genre, and the film washes about a bit finding a tone.