Tag Archives: Aharon Ipalé

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 5.6 “Line of Fire”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week, Crockett and Tubbs are assigned to protect a witness.

Episode 5.6 “Line Of Fire”

(Dir by Richard Compton, originally aired on December 16th, 1988)

Carlos Cantero (Aharon Ipalé) is on trial for murdering Ian Sims, one of Crockett’s confidential informants.  Crockett is the number one witness against him, which is a problem because Crockett just spent the last few months under the impression that he was Sonny Burnett, one of Miami’s biggest drug dealers.  Cantero’s defense attorney dismantles Crockett’s testimony by pointing out that Crockett had a “psychotic breakdown.”

(And you know what?  The attorney is actually very correct about that.  Crockett acts shocked when his mental health history is brought up but why wouldn’t it be?)

Luckily, there is an eyewitness to the murder of Ian Sims.  The FBI asks Crockett and Tubbs to keep an eye on Keith (Justin Lazard), a heavy metal fan who is willing to testify against Cantero.

I have to admit that I nearly gave up on this episode because my first impression of Keith was that he was the most annoying character to ever appear on a television show.  However, I’m glad that I didn’t because this episode actually introduced a very clever twist.  Keith is not actually Keith.  Instead, he’s DEA agent Joey Hardin, who has been assigned to pretend to be Keith to keep Cantero from going after the real Keith.  It turns out that FBI Agent Bates (Kevyn Major Howard, the “Do you believe in Jesus?” guy from Death Wish II) is crooked and he’s giving information to Cantero.

Unfortunately, Crockett doesn’t find out the truth until Joey has already been shot multiple times by Bates.  (Tubbs and Crockett proceed to gun down Bates.)  Joey nearly dies while the prosecutor chortles about how all of this is actually going to help him get a conviction.  It turns out that the prosecutor doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  The real Keith is now too terrified to testify against Cantero, leading to Cantero going free.  Joey does recover from being shot but, at the end of this episode, it’s hard not to feel that it was all for nothing.

This is one cynical episode!  But that’s okay.  Miami Vice was always at its best when it was being cynical and this episode is a throwback to old school Vice, back when the emphasis was on how no one could trust anyone and the government was often its own worst enemy.  Miami Vice was definitely a left-wing show but occasionally, it did reveal a libertarian streak.  That was certainly the case with this episode, in which the war on drugs is portrayed as being unwinnable because the government is naturally incompetent.  Young idealists like Joey Hardin are sent off to battle and are ultimately abandoned once they’re no longer needed.

This was a good episode.  I’m still having a hard time buying that Crockett could just go back to being a cop after being Miami’s top drug lord but whatever.  It’s the final season.  I’ll suspend my disbelief a little.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 3.14 “The Stimulation of Stephanie/Life Begins at 40/The Next Step”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986!  The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

Come aboard!  They’re expecting you!

Episode 3.14 “The Stimulation of Stephanie/Life Begins at 40/The Next Step”

(Dir by Allen Baron, originally aired on December 1st, 1979)

After being unexplainably absent last week, Vicki returns this week and is once again somehow a member of the Love Boat crew, despite only being 12.  Nobody asks where she was last week and certainly, no one asks her how she’s doing in school.  In fact, not only the crew but also the passengers seem to be totally accepting of the idea of a 12 year-old working as the assistant to the cruise director.  I guess the 70s were a different time.

If I seem to be harping on the strangeness of Vicki living on the boat, that’s because this week’s episode really isn’t that interesting.  This week’s episode is a fairly bland one.  It’s so bland that it really leaves you with no choice but wonder about the logistics of how the boat works.  And really, that’s something that should never happen when you’re watching a show like The Love Boat.  If you’re worrying about real-life questions while watching a show like this, it means that you’re watching an episode that just isn’t working.  The Love Boat, like Fantasy Island, should be an escape from reality and not an excuse to wonder about how it all works.

As usual, we’ve got three storylines to deal with.  Jo Anne Worley plays Dottie Anderson, who is 39 years old and still unmarried.  She’s booked herself in the honeymoon suite because she is determined that she is going to meet a man and get married over the course of the cruise.  Julie assures Dottie that there’s nothing wrong with being single when you’re 4o, which is easy for Julie to say because someone asks her to get married during almost every cruise.  Anyway, Dottie flirts with a lot of men and ultimately, she comes to realize that Julie was right.  She embraces being single and leaves the boat happy.  Yay!  This storyline didn’t add up too much but at least Jo Anne Worley knew how to deliver a joke.

Meanwhile, pro football player Virgil Plummer (Roosevelt Grier) is upset because he’s about to retire from the game that he loves and he doesn’t know what the future holds for him.  With the help of his wife (Melba Moore) and Isaac, Virgil realizing that he can pursue a career as a cook.  Personally, I’m not sure why he wouldn’t just retire and live off the millions he made as a football player.  Or maybe he could become a coach or one of those “fight for every inch” motivational speakers.  Grier and Moore had a likable chemistry (even if it did feel more like a close friend chemistry as opposed to a married chemistry) but again, this storyline just didn’t add up too much.

Finally, sex research Norman Bridges (Dick Martin) and his assistant, Stephanie Champman (Char Fontane) board the boat.  Bridges wants to research the roots of sexual simulation.  Stephanie is in love with Bridges, though you have to wonder why because he’s kind of a boring jerk.  Still, when Norman thinks that Doc Bricker is trying to seduce Stephanie, Norman goes down to Bricker’s cabin and punches him.  Unfortunately, Norman wasn’t wearing his glasses and didn’t initially realize that the woman in Doc’s cabin was not Stephanie but was instead a passenger named Lena (Judy Landers).  Eventually, Norman does figure out that Stephanie loves him and they leave the boat together.  Somehow, Norman got away with assaulting the ship’s doctor.  This storyline was just dumb.  No one in their right mind would fall in love with someone as clueless and self-absorbed as Norman.

This was a less-than-satisfactory cruise.  But that’s what happens when you break child labor laws.

A Movie A Day #338: Raid on Entebbe (1977, directed by Irvin Kershner)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

On June 27th, 1976, four terrorists hijacked an Air France flight and diverted it to Entebbe Airport in Uganda.  With the blessing of dictator Idi Amin and with the help of a deployment of Ugandan soldiers, the terrorists held all of the Israeli passengers hostage while allowing the non-Jewish passengers to leave.  The terrorists issued the usual set of demands.  The Israelis responded with Operation Thunderbolt, a daring July 4th raid on the airport that led to death of all the terrorists and the rescue of the hostages.  Three hostages were killed in the firefight and a fourth — Dora Bloch — was subsequently murdered in a Ugandan hospital by Idi Amin’s secret police.  Only one commando — Yonatan Netanyahu — was lost during the raid.  His younger brother, Benjamin, would later become Prime Minister of Israel.

Raid on Entebbe, a docudrama about the operation, was originally produced for NBC though it subsequently received an overseas theatrical release as well.  It’s an exciting tribute to the bravery of both the hostages and the commandos who rescued them.  Director Irvin Kershner directs in a documentary fashion and gets good performances from a cast full of familiar faces.  Charles Bronson, James Woods, Peter Finch, Martin Balsam, Stephen Macht, Horst Buchholz, Sylvia Sidney, Allan Arbus, Jack Warden, John Saxon, and Robert Loggia show up as politicians, commandos, terrorists, and hostages and all of them bring a sense of reality and humanity to their roles.

The film’s best performance comes from Yaphet Kotto, who plays Idi Amin as a strutting buffoon, quick to smile but always watching out for himself.  In the film, Amin often pays unannounced visits to the airport, where he lies and tells the hostages that he is doing his best to broker an agreement between the terrorists and Israel.  The hostages are forced to applaud Amin’s empty promises and Amin soaks it all up with a huge grin on his face.  Forest Whitaker may have won the Oscar for Last King of Scotland but, for me, Yaphet Kotto will always be the definitive Idi Amin.