Miami Vice (TV Series) Hostile Takeover (1988) User Reviews

Now this is how you start off a season.

[cory5521 · 9/10 · 27 July 2012]

My only complaint about this was I wish they would have had a 2 hour season premier, especially since this was that last season. It deserved it.

With "Hostile Takeover", Season 5 picks up, with spectacular style, right where it left off from season 4 and does so with one of the best MV episodes ever. This installment is completely different from past great episodes like "Smuggler's Blues" and "Out Where The Buses Don't Run" from season 1 or 2 but it is equally awesome. The way Johnson handles this new role is fun to watch, as is often with great actors that are given bad guy roles after spending most of their career as good guys. If you look at the credits you'll see Johnson directed this episode (kudos). I believe the production and directing crew knew this was the last season and they were all on their way out the door, including Jan Hammer, which explains the complete change in musical style. This left much of the creative control in the hands of Johnson and he doesn't fail. He did however have Yerkovich still writing for him.

This episode also has great supporting acting which is common throughout most of this series. Polito's "El Gato" is a little weird though. OK, a lot weird (shoulder pads?), but he doesn't pop up enough in the episode to do any real damage. I would have gone in a different direction with his character, but all in all, the supporting acting is great. You aren't going to experience the Michael Mann esque night time driving scenes with pastel backgrounds accompanied with Jammer's moody synthesized tunes, all of which I love. But don't be despaired because Johnson's acting is the best of the series and a real joy to watch.

I'm watching season 5 for the first time and the way this has kicked off just cemented Miami Vice as my all time favorite show. Not that it wasn't already.

A dramatic opening to the final season

[Tweekums · 9/10 · 27 January 2013]

Anybody tuning into 'Miami Vice' for the first time could be excused for thinking the series was about a criminal called Sonny Burnett; Crockett is lost in his underworld persona and is working for the Carrera crime family; helping them in their war against rival gangster 'El Gato'. He appears to be a loyal lieutenant but he isn't just helping them fight against El Gato; he is also planning to take over the organisation for himself. When his partner Ricardo Tubbs turns up for an undercover drugs deal he doesn't recognise him at first and when he does things might get dangerous.

This was a cracking start to the final season; much darker than most of what we have seen before in the series. Crockett doesn't appear to have any memory of his life as a policeman and is disturbingly at home in the murderous world of cocaine smuggling. The tension is kept high from start to finish as Crockett is in danger from El Gato, the Carrara and possibly even his friend and partner Tubbs! There is plenty of action although it does seem a bit dated at times as men in white clothes are shot but seldom appear to bleed! The acting was pretty solid; Don Johnson doing a great job as 'Burnett' and Debra Feuer doing well and looking great as his love interest Celeste. The lack of a 'part one' after the title may suggest that this is a self contained episode but the final scene ends with 'to be continued' and the viewer will be left wondering if Crockett or Tubbs has been shot... and keen to watch the next episode.

Great episode.

[mm-39 · 8/10 · 14 July 2013]

A great episode. Don Johnson is such a great actor. Crockett has amnesia form a explosion and believe he is a drug dealer. Johnson plays the evil drug dealer perfectly. The attitudes beliefs, and manor ism of Johnson was some of the best t v acting I have ever seen. Crockett and another dealer create a hostile takeover of a crumbling leaders drug lord's organization, while Miami Vice division wonder what has happened to Crockett. A riveting episode. Suspense, action, mixed with a great story. I give Hostile Takeover an eight out of ten. The next three or four episode where the most memorable of the series. The season ending, was such a cliff hangers! The next season was great with how and what must happen next.

"Sonny's not Sonny anymore!"

[JasonDanielBaker · 9 November 2012]

Sonny Burnett (Don Johnson) - a seasoned underworld enforcer/drug-trafficker remains lethal in his milieu now working for drug kingpin Oscar Carrera (Joe Santos).

Aiding in the brutal maintenance of Carrera Cartel footholds in multiple illegal enterprises (Mostly cocaine) and defending against incursions by outside criminal groups Burnett becomes the point-man in a war between Carrera and rival drug lord El Gato (Jon Polito).

In such a tense environment a guy can forget himself in his drive for self-preservation. That has happened to Burnett who has, via amnesia incurred in the finale of the fourth season, forgotten he is really Detective Sonny Crockett - vice cop whose cover should have been blown a very long time ago after facilitating multiple prosecutions resulting in successful indictments of countless cocaine traffickers in Miami-Dade County.

Having intricately woven a dual identity and passed himself off as a ruthless thug on the drug underworld scene for years a loss of memory leaves him with mere instincts and partial belief in his cover reputation.

He plays it out having only the occasional fragment of memories which contradict who and what he thinks he is. Surrounded by members of what remains of the drug underworld he has so successfully duped he has every reason to think he is who they think he is.

His police colleagues only have a vague idea of what might be going on with him though they know he has gone rogue. His partner and best friend Rico Tubbs (Phillip Michael Thomas) attempts to go in undercover as a buyer first to figure out what it is up then to get Sonny back on the ball.

I remain a huge fan of this storyline which tends to place me in the minority of Miami Vice fans. It was a show way ahead of its time throughout its run but the amnesia storyline put it ahead of shows 20 plus years later.

Some say it was wrong for the show and went in a direction it should not have. I can't think of a single series it was more right for and wish they had gone with it further than they did. In fact I wish they had made it the focus of the series.

A number of modern series (The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Weeds, Sons of Anarchy et al) show criminals as good guys. But I can't think of a single show that gave us a noble protagonist who became the baddie. I submit to the reader that this is the angle a future series might go in with more panache.