From the good people over at Fabulous Films Ltd, classic ‘80s cop drama Miami Vice, which comprised of 5 series, totalling 111 episodes, is being brought to Blu-ray in high definition. STARBURST had a sneaky peek…
From executive producer Michael Mann, Miami, for all of its glamour and beauty, is riddled with a seedy underworld and it’s the job of Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) and the Miami PD’s Vice Unit to bring it down. However, on a routine assignment, Crockett (initially) locks horns with Rico Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas), who is revealed to be a NYPD cop looking to take down his brother’s killer; these two men put aside their differences and form one of the most famous TV partnerships of the 1980s.
Miami Vice is now remembered more as a time capsule for ‘80s fashion, but when you watch it you realise just how radical the show was for its time. To begin with, it’s gritty. The bad guys that Crockett and Tubbs pursue are terrifying and you realise that you need cops like these to go after them; this is a credit to Johnson and Thomas who made the writing and characterisation up its game in order to work. Meanwhile, staying on our two heroes, they are not as straightforward a duo as you expect; they come into conflict with each other a lot, and who the “a-hole” of their conflict is flips between them. Again, their characterisation is brilliant; just because they’re cops doesn’t mean you have to like them, but you want them to be the cops out there on the job. Next, another defining feature of Miami Vice is its soundtrack; no TV show before it had integrated pop music into the scenes and atmosphere in quite the same way, and nowadays some programmes don’t do nearly as well! Finally, Miami Vice is also guest appearances galore! Expect to see the likes of Gene Simmons, George Takei, Benicio del Toro, Leonard Cohen, Steve Buscemi, Sheena Easton, Julia Roberts, Frankie Valli, Ben Stiller and Amanda Plummer to name but a few amongst the episodes in the series.
However, modern expectations will deter some viewers from Miami Vice because a lot of stories don’t arc across series and will expand into no more than two episodes (but hey, it still holds up better than the Colin Farrell-Jamie Foxx film incarnation!).
Overall, don’t let this put you off what is a genuinely innovative series, that isn’t as black and white with its characters as you would expect, and also has a good sense of humour about it (including scene-stealing cameos from an alligator named Elvis!). It’s a series that deserves the high definition treatment.
MIAMI VICE: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION / CERT: 18 / CREATOR: ANTHONY YERKOVICH, ANDRES CARRANZA / STARRING: DON JOHNSON, PHILIP MICHAEL THOMAS, SAUNDRA SANTIAGO, OLIVIA BROWN, MICHAEL TALBOTT / RELEASE DATE: DECEMBER 12TH
