"Miami Vice" Freefall (1989)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

Russ Mayberry

Writers:

William T. Conway (teleplay)
Frank Holman (story)

TV Series:

"Miami Vice" (1984)

Original Air Date:

21 May 1989 (Season 5, Episode 17)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Drama | Thriller

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Police | Drugs | Famous Opening Theme | Ferrari | Cult Favorite

Cast

Don Johnson	...	Det. James 'Sonny' Crockett
Philip Michael Thomas	...	Det. Ricardo 'Rico' Tubbs
Saundra Santiago	...	Det. Gina Navarro Calabrese
Michael Talbott	...	Det. Stan Switek
Olivia Brown	...	Det. Trudy Joplin
Edward James Olmos	...	Lt. Martin Castillo
Ian McShane	...	Gen. Manuel Borbon
Robert Beltran	...	Amendez
Sherman Howard	...	Col. Andrew Baker
Greg Germann	...	Johnny Raymond
Elpidia Carrillo	...	Sister Felicia
Maria Strova	...	Bianca Borbon
Rene Rivera	...	Capt. Jimendez
Alfredo Álvarez Calderón	...	Caesar Montoya (as Alfredo Alvarez Calderon)
Robert Fields	...	Commissioner Richard Highsmith

Runtime:

60 min

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Company:

Michael Mann Productions

Quotes:

[final dialogue of series finale]
Sonny Crockett: What you doing here? Figured you'd be halfway to New York by now.
Det. Ricardo Tubbs: Everything always takes longer than you think.
Sonny Crockett: Well we had one hell of a run, didn't we partner.
Det. Ricardo Tubbs: Yeah we sure did Sonny.
Sonny Crockett: So you really gonna go back up to the big bad Bronx?
Det. Ricardo Tubbs: Yeah it looks that way. How about you?
Sonny Crockett: I don't know. Somewhere further south, somewhere where the water is warm, the drinks are cold, and I don't know the names of the players.
Sonny Crockett: I'm gonna miss you man.
Det. Ricardo Tubbs: I'm gonna miss you too Sonny.
[...]

Soundtrack:

Lives In The Balance

The perfect way to wrap up a series.

By season five, Miami Vice had radically changed. Jan Hammer had left, the budget was very tight, the style had got much darker and violent, the ratings were not good at all and Don Johnson wasn't in very many episodes (due to working big time in Hollywood on major motion pictures). The season finale "Freefall" is a perfect finale to the series because it shows the political problems which were going on in Latin America during the 80's and completely different compared to 2 part episodes like "Calderone's Return", "The Prodigal Son" & "Down For The Count". The action's good and so's the setting, etc... The scene with the Ferrari testarossa speeding down the streets of Miami with the song "Bad Attitude" by Honeymoon Suite works because it's re-showing the defining image from the pilot episode with the Daytona driving through the night down down the streets with the song "In the air tonight" by Phil Collins playing that introduced us to Miami Vice in the first place. It was the right time to end the show because if it had carried on into the nineties, it wouldn't have been the same. Miami Vice was only for the 80's and that's where it belonged. Rating 10/10, "Freefall" is one of the greatest finales to a series that I've seen and it showed that Miami Vice could wrap it up with a bang.