Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.18 “Badge of Dishonor”

Posted on September 1, 2025 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 battle some corrupt cops.

Episode 4.18 “Badge of Dishonor”

(Dir by Richard Compton, originally aired on March 18th, 1988)

Badge of Dishonor opens with Underworld’s Glory, Glory playing on the soundtrack. It’s an early electronic tune, one that isn’t quite EDM but still definitely shows hints of what Underworld and a lot of other synth-pop bands would eventually become. Usually, that would be pretty cool but, unfortunately, the song also has a gospel music feel and I personally gospel music to be excruciatingly dull.

That’s certainly the case here, where the music is played over the opening teaser and the gospel sounds robs it of whatever momentum it might have had. The episode opens with a drug deal gone wrong. Tubbs is working undercover when he and his contacts are suddenly busted by four cops, who kill the real dealers and then steal the drugs and the money. Tubbs barely manages to escape with his life. It should have been an exciting opening but it had a “been there, done that” sort of feel to it. This isn’t the first Miami Vice episode to feature an drug deal gone wrong and it’s not even the first to feature corrupt cops.

The cops in question are all originally from Cuba. Back in Castro’s Hellhole, they were all members of the same street gang. After coming to Miami and building up lengthy juvenile records, the four men were subsequently hired after a race riot (a real-life event that Castillo discusses in his terse manner) led to demands for a more racially-balanced police force. Because the force desperately needed some non-redneck cops, no one bothered to do an extensive background check on the four men when they applied to be cops. Tubbs comments that the corrupt cops are setting “minority hiring back 400 years.”

Crockett and Tubbs’s investigation at first centers on a lieutenant (Reni Santoni) who they think is crooked because he lives on a yacht. The lieutenant explains that he married well and that he suspects the same four cops as Crockett and Tubbs. The lieutenant is subsequently murdered by the cops. It turns out that the corrupt cops are getting their information from an undercover detective named Madison Stone (Michele Shay). Stone has spent the past few years deep undercover, living in a homeless community on the riverfront. Stone is not herself corrupt. She’s just been manipulated and is now in an impossible situation. At least, that’s the way Tubbs views it. Myself, I just felt that Madison Stone appeared to be as bad at working undercover as Sonny Crockett.

Technically, this was a well-made episode. The main problem is that the plot itself just felt so familiar and the four corrupt cops were not particularly interesting. Compared to the usual flamboyant Miami Vice criminals, the cops were pretty bland. In typical Miami Vice fashion, it ended on a dark note. The corrupt cops were defeated but both Madison Stone and their lieutenant were dead. There’s no happy endings in Miami.

Summer Rental (1985, directed by Carl Reiner)

Posted on June 29, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

After a blow-up at work, air traffic controller John Chester (John Candy) is given five weeks of paid leave. He takes his family to Florida, where they rent a beach house and discover that their summer town is controlled by snobbish sailing champion Al Pellett (Richard Crenna). It’s the snobs vs slobs as Pellett tries to kick John and his family out of their summer rental and John tries to prove himself to his son and daughter (Joey Lawrence and Kerri Green) by winning the local sailing championship. Luckily, John has Sully (Rip Torn), a modern-day pirate captain, on his side.

John Candy was a remarkable talent. It’s just a shame that he didn’t appear in more good films. He will always be remembered for films like Splash, Uncle Buck, Planes, Train, and Automobiles, and Only The Lonely but unfortunately, most of his starring roles were in lightweight, forgettable far like Summer Rental. Candy is likable as John Chester and sympathetic even when he’s losing his temper over every minor inconvenience. But the film itself never really does much to distinguish itself from all of the other 80s comedies about middle class outsiders taking on the richest man in town. Candy is stuck playing a role that really could have been played by any comedic actor in 1985. It’s just as easy to imagine Dan Aykroyd or even Henry Winkler in the role. It feels like a waste of Candy.

The best thing about the film is Rip Torn’s performance as Sully. Torn’s performance here feels like a dry run for his award-winning work as Artie on The Larry Sanders Show. I would have watched an entire movie about Sully. As it is, Summer Rental is inoffensive and forgettable.

Retro Television Review: Indict & Convict (dir by Boris Sagal)

Posted on May 26, 2024 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 Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1974’s Indict & Convict! It can be viewed on YouTube.

There’s been a murder!

The wife of Assistant District Attorney Sam Belden (William Shatner) has been found, shot to death. Making things especially awkward is that the body of her lover is found next to her. Though Belden is the obvious suspect, he has an alibi for the time of the murders. He claims that he was in Las Vegas, attending a convention. Two gas station attendants remember seeing him filling up his car with gas at around the same time that his wife and her lover was being shot.

Attorney General Timothy Fitzgerald (Ed Flanders) is not so sure that Belden is innocent. He instructs two of his top prosecutors to check out Belden’s story and to see if there’s enough evidence to not only indict but also to convict. Bob Matthews (George Grizzard) is a veteran prosecutor and he’s the one who narrates the story for us. Assisting him is Mike Belano, who is played by the always likable Reni Santoni. Just three years before this movie aired, Santoni played Harry Callahan’s partner in Dirty Harry. There was just something about Santoni’s friendly but determined demeanor that made him perfect the role of the supportive partner or assistant.

The film is very much a legal procedural, with the emphasis on not only the investigation but also on the strategies and the techniques that are used in the courtroom by Matthews and defense attorney DeWitt Foster (Eli Wallach). In many ways, it feels like a forerunner to Law & Order. Usually, I love court procedurals but Indict & Convict was a bit too slow and high-minded for its own good. Maybe it’s because I’ve been spoiled by all of the legal shows that I’ve seen but I have to admit that I spent a good deal of Indict & Convict wanting the prosecutors to get on with it. Flanders, Grizzard, Santoni, and Wallach were all ideally cast but the film itself sometimes got bogged down with all the debate about the best way to win a conviction. It’s a shame because the story itself is an intriguing one and I actually enjoyed the movie’s use of spinning newspaper headlines to let us know what had happened in between scenes. Also, as a classic film fan, I enjoyed seeing Myrna Loy as the judge. She didn’t get to do much other than say, “Sustained” and “Overruled,” but still …. Myrna Loy!

Most people who watch this film will probably do so out of the hope of seeing some trademark Shatner overacting. William Shatner doesn’t actually get to say much in this film. He spends most of the running time sitting silently at the defense table. Towards the end, he does finally get a chance to deliver a brief speech and it’s everything you could hope for. Shatner takes dramatic pauses. Shatner emphasizes random words. Every line is delivered with the subtext of, “Pay attention, Emmy voters!” Eventually, Shatner would learn the value of laughing at oneself but apparently, that lesson had not yet been learned when he did Indict & Convict.

Cobra (1986, directed by George Pan Cosmatos)

Posted on March 25, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

“You’re the disease. I’m the cure.”

When a madman pulls out a gun in the middle of a supermarket, he starts out by firing at the produce department. He doesn’t shoot at anyone who works in the produce department. Instead, in slow motion, he blows away cabbages and apples. Then he shoots a shopping cart. He finally gets around to shooting one innocent bystander after telling him to walk down an aisle.

Outside the supermarket, a 1950 Mercury Monterey Coupe pulls up. The personalized license plate reads Awsum 50. The car’s driver (Sylvester Stallone) steps out of the car. His name is Lt. Cobretti but everyone calls him Cobra. Detective Monte (Andy Robinson, who played the killer in Dirty Harry) tells Cobra to stay out of it. Cobra ignores him and goes into the store.

The guman raves that he’s a part of the “new world.”

“You wasted a kid for nothing,” Cobra says. “Now, I think it’s time to waste you.”

And then Cobra does just that.

After getting yelled at by his superiors, Cobra drives back to his apartment, throws away his mail, and uses a pair of scissors as an eating utensil. Just another day in the life of Cobra.

If you hadn’t already guessed, Cobra is the ultimate Sylvester Stallone-in-the-80s Cannon film. In 1985, Stallone could do any film that he wanted to and, even if he wasn’t the director, the job was usually given to someone who wouldn’t stand in the way of letting Sly achieve his vision. (That vision usually involved Stallone getting all of the good shots while everyone else dove for cover.) Stallone is credited as the writer of Cobra and whatever else you can say about the man and his films, Stallone the screenwriter knew exactly what Stallone the actor was good at. There’s not much meaningful dialogue in Cobra and most of it is made up of either Stallone threatening to shoot people or characters like the Night Slasher (Brian Thompson) bragging about how Cobra can’t touch him because of the constitution. There is more intentional humor in Cobra than I think most people realize and there are a few scenes that only make sense if you accept that Stallone was poking fun of his own monosyllabic image. For the most part, though, Cobra is nonstop violence from beginning to end.

Amazingly, Cobra started out as Beverly Hills Cops. Before Eddie Murphy was cast as Axel Foley, Beverly Hills Cop was briefly meant to be a Sylvester Stalllone film. Stallone, however, rewrote the script and took out most of the humor. After the film’s producers reminded Stallone that they were trying to make a comedy, Stallone left the project and most of his ideas ended up in the script for Cobra. The film features a murderous cult, led by the knife-wielding Night Slasher, that is determined to destroy anyone who they think is standing in the way of the “new world.” Only Cobra can both stop them and also protect the life of their latest target, a model named Ingrid Knudsen (Brigitte Nielsen). It’s hard to imagine Eddie Murphy dealing with any of this but it’s perfect for Stallone.

Cobra is a live-action cartoon and Cobra’s battle with the Night Slasher should be taken as seriously as He-Man’s battles with Skeletor. The Night Slasher has no motivation beyond just being evil, Cobra never runs out of bullets or takes even a piece of shrapnel despite having hundreds of cultists shooting at him, and there’s an extended sequence where Ingrid poses with life-size robots. Cobra chews on a toothpick and wears dark glasses and that’s all the personality he needs. After all, crime is the disease and he’s the cure.

Embracing the Melodrama Part II #69: Bad Boys (dir by Rick Rosenthal)

Posted on May 12, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First off, I am not about to review the Michael Bay film where Will Smith and Martin Lawrence shoot people and blow things up. Instead, this Bad Boys is a film from 1983 where Sean Penn doesn’t shoot anyone but that’s mostly because he can’t get his hands on a gun. And, at one point, a radio does blow up. So, perhaps this Bad Boys has more in common with the Michael Bay Bad Boys than I originally realized.

Anyway, Bad Boys is about Mick O’Brien (Sean Penn), who is a 16 year-old criminal from Chicago. One night, when one of his crimes goes wrong, Mick’s best friend (Alan Ruck) is killed and Mick accidentally runs over the brother of rival gang leader, Paco (Esai Morales). Mick is sent to juvenile detention where he and his sociopathic cellmate, Horowitz (Eric Gurry), team up to overthrow the two “leaders” of their block, Viking (Clancy Brown, with scary blonde hair) and Tweety (Robert Lee Rush). Meanwhile, Paco is arrested for raping Mick’s girlfriend, JC (Ally Sheedy), and soon finds himself living on the same cell block as Mick.

And it all leads to … violence!

(In the movies, everything leads to violence.)

Bad Boys is one of those films that seems to show up on cable at the most random of times. I’ve never quite understood why because it’s not like Bad Boys is a particularly great film. It’s hard to see anything about this film that would lead a programmer to say, “Let’s schedule 100 airings of Bad Boys!” If anything, it’s the epitome of a good but not that good film. On the one hand, you have to appreciate a film that attempts to take a serious look at both juvenile crime and the true life consequences of tossing every “lawbreaker” into a cell and locking the door. People fetishize the idea of punishing criminals but they rarely consider whether those punishments actually accomplish anything beyond satisfying society’s obsessive need for revenge. (And it’s interesting to note that the problems of 1983 are not that much different from the problems of 2015.) On the other hand, Bad Boys is way too long, heavy-handed, and repetitive. This was one of Sean Penn’s first roles and, much like the film itself, he’s good without being that good. Watching his performance, you get the feeling that James Dean would say, “Nice try.”

However, the film is saved by two actor. First off, there’s Clancy Brown as the stupid but intimidating Viking. With his bad skin, blonde hair, and a permanent snarl on his face, Brown makes Viking into a character who is both ludicrous and scary. And then there’s Eric Gurry as the small and demonic Horowitz. According to his imdb page, Gurry long ago retired from acting but anybody who sees Bad Boys will never forget him.