1983 / 2006

Her,Suzanne76 pointed this connection out to me at a recent screening of The Keep so she gets full credit for this, whatever that's worth.  Obviously the stills aren't quiet as effective as seeing the scenes play out in motion, but there is certainly something familiar about the Miami Vice scene that feels like it may be some kind of an acknowledgement of the earlier film.  Whether this is an intentional nod to The Keep on Mann's part or not, it's worth pondering.  It should, of course, also be noted that Mann has not kept his negative feelings about The Keep secret and has "disowned" it to a degree.  To date, The Keep remains unavailable on DVD or Blu-ray, no doubt due to Mann's antipathy towards the finished film, though it can be found streaming, in widescreen, on Netflix Instant.

Scott Glenn's Glaeken Trismegestus travels by fishing boat from Greece to Romania in Michael Mann's The Keep (1983).

Sonny Crockett (Colin Farrell) pilots a speedboat with Isabella (Gong Li) from Miami to her Cuban home in Mann's Miami Vice (2006).

Addendum: it seems I had a different scene in mind than Her,Suzanne76 when she whispered to me during the "boat scene" in The Keep, "Like Miami Vice."  We have a pretty good shorthand going, but sometimes even our signals can get crossed.

More nautical stuff from Mann's Miami Vice, most of it at night, the sky taking on some of the same purple and orange hues as in the scene in The Keep.