Ed Amatrudo | Through the Shattered Lens

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, the Vice Squad learns that a man has to know his limitations.

Episode 5.15 “Over The Line”

(Dir by Russ Mayberry, originally aired on April 28th, 1989)

“All of our heroes are dead.”

That line was delivered in 1973’s Magnum Force, by a motorcycle cop-turned-vigilante who justified his murderous actions by claiming that he was a part of the first generation without heroes. That line could have just as easily been delivered by the cops in this episode of Miami Vice.

Crockett and Tubbs are recruited by Walter Stevens (Thomas Arana), a cop-turned-vigilante who explains to them that, once they join his organization, they can never leave. Of course, Crockett and Tubbs are only pretending to be vigilantes so that they can take down both the drug dealers and Walter’s organization. They do this despite the fact that, in many ways, Crockett agrees with Walter. But when Walter’s methods lead to three good cops getting killed, Crockett realizes that Walter has to be stopped. Even worse, he discovers that Walter is funding his operation by selling the cocaine that he confiscates from the dealers.

When Crockett pulls his gun on Walter and tells him to surrender, Walter appears to be doing so. Walter warns Crockett that there’s a lot more to the organization than Crockett realizes. Suddenly, a police captain named Robert Highsmith (Robert Fields) pops up and shoots Walter. Crockett says that Walter was surrendering. Highsmith insists that he saved Crockett’s life.

With the drug dealers and the bad cops taken down, Highsmith takes all the credit. Highsmith is not only a police captain but he’s also a candidate for Dade County Supervisor. At a televised “meet-the-candidate” forum, Highsmith brags about how he personally is helping to clean up the city. Crockett watches and says, “Whatever it takes, right?”

Agck!

Seriously, this episode is cynical even by the standards of Miami Vice. Legitimate cops like Crockett and Tubbs can’t do their job because of budget cuts. The vigilante cops are taking down the drug dealers but they’re also stealing and selling cocaine so they’re not actually doing anything to stop the flow of drugs into Miami. Walter becomes the first Miami Vice bad guy to both show remorse and to willingly surrender but he’s still gunned down by Captain Highsmith who, at the end of the episode, appears poised to be elected to political office. Miami Vice was often critical of the War on Drugs. This episode showed why the war couldn’t be won, despite the best efforts of soldiers like Crockett, Tubbs, and Castillo. Men like Highsmith had to appear to be winning the war so that they could accumulate more power but if they actually did win the war, they would no longer be given carte blanche to do whatever they wanted.

This was a dark but effective episode. Crockett’s hair has never been longer and he’s never appeared more defeated.

In The Alto Knights, I’m pretty sure that Robert De Niro sets the record for saying “What’s the mater with you!?” the most times in one movie.

I don’t know for sure, of course. While I was watching the movie last night, I didn’t keep an exact count and, for that, shame on me. That said, when you consider that The Alto Knights features Robert De Niro playing not just one but two old school Italian gangsters, you can be sure that there were a lot of scenes of either Vito Genovese (Robert De Niro) or Frank Costello (De Niro, again) demanding to know what was the matter. When Genovese watches Costello testifying in front of a Congressional hearing, the “What’s the matter with you!?” count truly goes haywire.

The Alto Knights was directed by Barry Levinson, who has directed some great films. It tells the relatively true story of the rivalry between Costello and Genovese. Both Costello and Genovese were present when the modern Mafia was first created. The diplomatic and negotiation-minded Costello was known as the “Prime Minister of the Underworld.” Genovese was a much more violent gangster and he became one of the most powerful members of the New York Mafia by basically killing anyone who stood in his way. Costello and Genovese started out as weary friends before coming mortal enemies. Costello retired from the rackets after Genovese ordered one of his men to shoot Costello in the head. Meanwhile, Genovese ended up involving the Mafia in the drug trade and died in prison. In the film, Costello narrates their story. There’s a lot of shots of an elderly Costello sitting in what appears to be a park as he speaks directly to the camera. Interestingly enough, Gotti tried to do the same thing, with Travolta’s John Gotti speaking directly to the audience while standing in front of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Alto Knights pretty much features all of the usual Mafia tropes. All the usual points are hit. Albert Anastasia (played by Michael Rispoli) is assassinated while getting a haircut and some viewers will remember that, before De Niro played the man who ordered Anastasia’s assassination, he also played the man who claimed to have shot Anastasia in The Irishman. Personally, I love Mafia films but The Alto Knights felt a bit too recycled to be truly effective. Barry Levison does the usual thing of dropping real-life newspaper headlines and photographs into the middle of the film and it doesn’t so much add verisimilitude as much as it just reminds one of David DeCoteau’s film about Bonnie and Clyde.

The film’s main selling point is that it features Robert De Niro playing two gangsters but there’s really not much gained from casting De Niro in both roles. We get a few scenes of De Niro acting opposite of himself and it’s hard not to notice that Genovese’s reactions often don’t seem to match whatever it is that Costello’s saying. As an actor, De Niro has the ability to be believable as both the cerebral Costello and the hot-headed Genovese but ultimately, the double casting just feels like a distraction. Watching De Niro acting opposite himself, I found myself thinking how much more entertaining it would have been if Joe Pesci, Al Pacino, Harvey Keitel, or even John Travolta had played Genovese. To be honest, if Levinson really had any courage, he would have given the role to James Woods and given us the Once Upon A Time In America/Casino reunion that we all deserve.

The film did win me over a bit towards the end with a recreation of the Apalachin meeting. That was when Genovese invited every mob boss in the country to come to a meeting in upstate New York, just for the feds to suddenly show up and send everyone scattering. For most of the film, it was hard not to feel that Barry Levinson was past his prime as a director but he actually did a good job with the Apalachin scenes. I genuinely laughed when Genovese got into a pointless argument with his driver. I loved the way the film captured the real-life absurdity of a bunch of mob bosses fleeing into the woods, all of their bravado suddenly dissipating as they scrambled into the wilderness. If the entire film had just been about the Apalachin meeting, this review would probably be a lot of different. As it is, one good sequence can’t save the film as a whole.

This is an offer you can refuse.