Miami Vice - Season Four
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Movie Reviews of Miami Vice - Season Four
Movie Review: a weird, but sometimes very good season of vice
Summary: 4 Stars
Ok, this was a very strange, and often goofy, season of vice with some pretty good episodes and some very bad episodes. sonny gets married and loses his mind (no, not at the same time). the marriage to caitlin davies (sheena easton) is kinda hokey, and some think crockett's brain damage and subsequent reversion to burnett is hokey, but i really liked that story arch. here's a summary of the eps:
contempt of court: geez, this is the season premiere?? a lackluster episode about a mob guy (stanley tucci) attempts to get to the witness that will testify against him at trial. pretty dull...
amen send money: pretty funny episode with dueling television evangelists. one of them accuses tubbs of rape. i like the soundtrack of this one and it had some really funny moments...
Death & the Lady: pretty good episode about a strange porno director that crockett and tubbs suspect has made a genuine snuff film. crockett teaches him a lesson about the fact that violence isn't glamorous...
The Big Thaw: another goofy episode about a dead and frozen reggie star. everyone is fighting over his body and izzie is involved in the scam. pretty funny stuff...
child's play: a strange episode in which crockett shoots a child. the children's parents speak directly to the camera about the shooting and crocket agonizes about it. the kid isn't necessarily the innocent victim he was first thought to be however...
god's work: esai morales returns as a potential heir to takeover a family drug operation but may be there for other reasons entirely. pretty good episode in the scheme of things
missing hours: many fans HATED this episode but i liked the dream-like quality of it as trudy investigates a missing body from the morgue and has strange dreams (and encounters) with james brown, who is the head of a ufo investigation. nuggie, izzie and peanut butter are featured...
like a hurricane: ok, this is where sonny falls in love with sheena easton after agreeing to protect her in a payola scam. sheena is actually pretty good in this and makes it more believable. some funny dialogue and she demands to drive his "testosteroni" and calls him the fashion police. they fall in love and get married
the rising sun of death: castillo investigates the yakuza in miami. didn't really like this ep.
love at first sight: caitlin worries about sonny's assignment in a dating service. iman comes back in this. this is not a good episode...
rock and a hard place: two music guys try to expose sonny as a drug dealer to ruin caitlin's music career. funny scene when they try to block sonny in as he leaves a parking lot
The cows of october: geez, what is up with this season? this episode is also really goofy as a conman tries to sell supposedly mini-cow bull sperm to the u.s. and communists and izzy trys to broker the deal. still, pretty funny stuff..
vote of confidence: the gang raids a rolling whorehouse (a train) and discover that one of the johns is a senatorial candidate <<yawn>>
baseballs of death: ok, now we return to the good, non-goofy, vice format as chase a chilean police chief that kills a hooker and is trying to buy small land-mines (the baseballs of death). a funny scene when the chilean demands that "this peasant (crockett) pick up my gun" crockett: it will be a cold day in july pal!"
indian wars: wow! a great start as american indians drop in on a drug deal with hawaiian chance, by yello, playing in the background. tubbs goes undercover to learn more about the tribe. he looks a little like ed bradley as he sports his glasses. a good episode
honor among thieves: ok a really weird episode in which crockett and tubbs track down a serial killer that pumps little kids full of high-quality blow. he is a high level drug dealer and crocket has to act as his lawyer in a trial set up by the other drug dealers. hummm, not to sure about any of this...
hell hath no fury: a lame episode about a rapist who is released and goes on the talk show circuit. is he really rehabilitated or does he have something else in mind? does anyone care?
badge of dishonor: didn't like this ep. about a gang of bad cops who are hitting drug dealers. crockett suspects a woman that is part of south beach special ops as being in on the hits. i only watched this episode about 2 times...
blood and roses: another lame ep. in which gina gets way too close to a drug dealer. crockett gets over-protective of her, but he's proven right in the end...
a bullet for crocket: ok, this ep. is called, "we need to save money and/or we don't have any ideas..." crockett is shot and the gang sits around the hospital room reminiscing about him, which means they get to fill this ep. with clips from all the previous episodes. basically, a free episode for them to do
deliver us from evil: ok, now we get back to the good vice as crockett tracks down the guy he got out of death row. great soundtrack (finally!) and great plot. also, no more sheena easton! very contraversial ending among the fans as they try to determine whether sonny's shooting of the suspect is justified. could the shooting have been where sonny became burnett for good (before the explosion in the next ep)
mirror image: really good episode in which sonny barely excapes an explosion from a boat, which triggers amnesia and crockett to believe that he is really burnett. he goes to work for a drug lord and is very effective. my theory is that he couldn't take the pain of being crockett anymore after the death of his wife, and the explosion on the boat was nothing more than an excuse to lapse into his burnett persona. he's really good as burnett and ruthless. its the few gems in this season such as this one that make this set worth buying.
overall, a somewhat poor season of vice. even at its worst, vice is better than other tv shows though.
Movie Review: Indulge in more 80s Vices
Summary: 4 Stars
By the time the fourth season of MV appeared in the Fall of 1987, the show had peaked ratings-wise (second season) and creativity-wise (arguably the previous season). The writers were new, and it shows. Our favorite stylish cops are put in some new and strange situations. This is a pretty mixed bag compared with previous seasons.
There are a number of noticeably weaker episodes this time around. Some seem half-finished, never taking advantage of a good idea. Examples include Rising Sun of Death, dealing with the Yakuza in Miami. The plot is completely confusing, and by the climactic swordfight(!) and hari-kiri, I didn't much care anymore. There's also a requisite flashback episode when Sonny gets gunned down and the cast wait in the hospital while reminiscing on past seasons. There's the cryogenically frozen reggae singer whose body the Vice squad winds up trying to safeguard from scheming factions. Then there's the whole Crockett marriage to Sheena Easton, who plays a version of herself. This unlikely romance sets in motion the season-ending cliffhanger (first time on the show) which takes things down a dark path.
And perhaps the most reviled episode, often voted worst ever, is Missing Hours. This is a sci-fi episode of sorts where the partners investigate strange reports of alien abduction involving...Trudy and James Brown! Or is there a quite logical but non-public explanation? I actually thought it was kind of fun to watch the cast in a non-standard situation, having fun with the conventions. It's definitely strange, it ends strangely, but as for 'worst episode of any show ever'...I would not be so harsh. When you crank out 100 episodes of any drama, expect a clunker or two.
The season begins strongly, with the return of Stanley Tucci as Gotti-esque gangster Frank Mosca. Pity they don't keep him around, though, and the violent ending comes with no coda at all, which was becoming a regularity on the show. Then Brian Dennehy makes a tremendous guest appearance in a 'ripped from the headlines' episode as he plays a televangelist who may or may not be shady. Another popular theme (to this day) appears in Death And The Lady, about a popular artists whose foray into 'erotic performance art' may or may not contain murderous elements.
More so than previous seasons, the endings in Season Four are cynically twisted or nihilistic, with no afterthought to the deception or violence. One gets the sense that the show's characters (and writers) were feeling the wear and tear of the Miami underworld (and of coming up with plots for 20+ episodes). In true late-80s fashion, things get grittier and grittier amidst the neon and soft focus. This perhaps echoes the sentiments around the 'War on Drugs' and the increasing frustration with fighting an inexhaustible supply of dealers and product.
The show was never about police procedure, which explains the consistent holes and flaws that presumably exist to keep certain 'elements' of style and posing in place for the weekly viewer. For instance, though Crockett and Tubbs are undercover...they consistently show up at crime scenes AS cops, but in their undercover outfits and cars, in front of crowds of onlookers and even the media. And they're always hanging out at the police station, which is supposed to be discreet...but nobody notices the white Ferrari that appears there every day? They do overt cop work while in their undercover clothes and cars...I don't get it. Way too many people learn that they're cops for the facade to survive for this long...not ONE criminal has leaked their personas to the underworld? They don't change their appearance or names? Again, too much thought for what was supposed to originally be 'MTV cops'.
The box set is bare bones, with zero extras. (The only MV set with extras was actually Season One). Part of the delay in release was the clearance of song rights for the many tracks used in the many episodes. Also, in contrast to Seasons One and Two, these episodes do not even have mini-menus with a synopsis of the episode (when you click the episode you want to watch, it goes straight into the prologue/intro). Which is all fine, I guess. The show looks good, though with a bit of grain, particularly when stock footage is used. Thankfully, there are sub-titles for deciphering names and various lines that are muttered. Given the wide availability of the set at decent prices, the box is still a good value.
Highly recommended for the MV fanatic, more casual fans should check out the previous seasons (just start with the original). While the show is cemented in the collective conscious as being an exercise in style (most associated with the clothes), it was a lot better than folks think, and has proven very influential to this day.
Movie Review: Not exactly Crockett and Tubbs at their finest but it all pays off in the end, pal.
Summary: 4 Stars
It's interesting to note that Season 4 suffers from the misfortune of having occurred after most of the original writers and producers for the show, including creators Anthony Yerkovich and Michael Mann, had long-since bailed and freelance writers were brought in to write for the show, most of whom had probably not even seen an episode of Miami Vice and had no clue how to write for the series cast. The result is an unforgiveably mixed bag of erratic episodes that are all over the map. The season opener "Contempt of Court" features great performances by Stanley Tucci and Meg Foster but it feels more like a mid-season filler episode than an explosive opener compared to Season 3's "When Irish Eyes Are Crying" but nonetheless gets the season off to an awkward start. By the fourth episode in, however, the season gets pretty much derailed beginning with "The Big Thaw" about a Rastafarian Michael Jackson reggae singer preserved in a cryogenic sleep chamber and then there's the infamous "Missing Hours" featuring James Brown and a whacked-out plot revolving around Trudy's alien abduction and it's time to call in Mulder and Scully instead of Crockett and Tubbs. If Vice hadn't already "Jumped the Shark" at that point, the introduction of Sheena Easton in the following episode "Like A Hurricane" as Sonny's recurring love-interest Caitlin Davies is enough to make you shriek like nails screeching on chalkboard when Sonny's lovey-dovey side reduces the season into a series of mushy soap-opera escapades and inevitable wedding bells ring while poor Rico is left on the sidelines. Then there's the throwaway "flashback" episode aptly titled "A Bullet For Crockett" which is nothing more than a series of clips from previous episodes including "Evan" from which the episode derives its name from as Sonny fights for his life after being shot in action, an oft-imitated television cheat which would be recycled again in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Shades of Gray" with Riker fighting for his life intercut with a series of episode flashbacks. On the plus side there's some good cinematography and lighting this season and DJ looks good with his longer hairstyle and PMT looks pretty suave with his GQ beard and there's a pretty decent selection of alternative music featuring tracks by artists like Yello, Love and Rockets, Gene Loves Jezebel, Billy Idol, Iggy Pop, U2 and Peter Gabriel peppered throughout but any misgivings you may have about season 4 eventually payoff with patience building to the last two dramatically stunning episodes of the season, "Deliver Us From Evil" when Crockett's nemesis Frank Hackman returns to settle the score and "Mirror Image" with Crockett suffering from amnesia and believing he is his undercover persona Burnett ("That's B-U-R-N-E-double T") that set the stage for the jaw-dropping season-ender and the three-part Burnett story-arc that continues into Vice's fifth and final season.Movie Review: A Silly Start but Solid Finish!
Summary: 4 Stars
Season 4 may not be Miami Vice at it's best but it's still way better than the movie and also way better than law shows we have these days. Give me Miami Vice over Law & Boredom anyway. The most exciting thing about that show is the...."Dung Dung" in the opening. This season of Miami Vice has a silly start but a solid ending. In the beginning you have Crockett and Tubbs given silly missions with less of the action that us fans love. I mean you have them watching over a frozen body in one and an episode possible alien abductions for god's sake. You also have a silly but entertaining episode with 2 tv preachers feuding and Crockett and Tubbs caught in the middle.
So it's obvious that they ran out of ideas during this season but it's still not bad at all. Probably the strongest is where Crockett accidently shoots a kid and he decides to look up his ex and their kid to be a father figure again. But it's not going to be that easy since his ex has a new guy in her life that wants to adopt his kid with Crockett totally shut out. So their is some good drama this season.
I do think that Crockett falls for a singer that he's supposed to protect way too quickly though. I mean they get married in the episode where he just met her. But that leads up to something good too. Crockett has to deal with the publicity of being married to a famous singer and it makes her look bad when it's put in the newspapers that he's a drug dealer. Since a reporter uncovers Crockett's history as his undercover identity Bernett. Crockett with a new wife also leads to a solid episode before the season finale though. Plus we get a different side of Crockett in the season finale as well when he loses his memory and thinks he actually is Bernett. It may be a bit unrealistic but it's still a very cool cliffhanger of an ending for the season. It's also not that silly compared to a lot of the other things from this season either. Hell I even love the 3 episodes where Crockett thinks he's Bernett and acts like a ruthless criminal, it's good stuff. To get the other 2 episodes like that, you need season 5 of course.
The season also offers some excellent appearances by Chris Cooper, Julia Roberts, Oliver Platt, Chris Rock and James Brown "Rock and Brown both appear in one of my least favorite episodes where Trudy has been drugged", Ving Rhames and Stanley Tucci also appear in different roles than they had in previous seasons.
Movie Review: A Good and a Mediocre Season
Summary: 4 Stars
This season did not have the look or feel of seasons 1-3 and just felt different but it is still a lot better than Season 5.
Jan Hammer sharing composing duties with John Peterson and reducing the amount of music in the show was not a good idea and it made Miami Vice seem like any other cop or detective show without the music.
The last 3 episodes A Bullet For Crocket, Deliver Us From Evil, and Mirror Image most resembled the earlier Miami Vice shows with the music brought back in the scenes.
Antonio Fargas in Mirror Image was one of the most disturbing and interesting villains in the series.
Also it was a bad idea to introduce Sheena Easton as a love interest.
I think they did this to counter Dallas on CBS so they wanted to add a soap opera element to the show to attract more female viewers.
There are a lot of quality actors and stars showing up in guest spots like Stanley Tucci, Brian Dennehy, Julia Roberts, Ving Rhames (second time he appears as a guest star first was in the Maze), Philip Baker Hall, Ben Stiller, Alfred Molina, Esai Morales, Chris Rock, James Brown, James Hong, Iman, Oliver Platt, Michael Wincott, and Antonio Fargas.
The rest of the episodes worth watching are Amen... Send Money, Childs Play, Gods Work, Rising Suns of Death, Love at First Sight, Indian Wars, Honor Among Thieves, and Badge of Dishonor.
Avoid the Cows of October
The worst Miami Vice episode ever.
Still Miami Vice is one of the best shows ever to appear on TV and I doubt any show in the past or future will match its impact.