7/28/06: Mitchell (1975)[Warning: Spoilers to Miami Vice herein—but it’s a crappy movie]You’d think the big-screen
Miami Vice would inherently be RightWingTrash. In truth, though,
Miami Vice is stylish idiocy. The film is set in a world where it’s okay to slaughter white-supremacist drug dealers in a trailer park, but it’s better for cops to let a beautiful Asian drug dealer run off to live large in Havana.
Not that we’re opposed to deadly force against white-supremacist drug dealers in a trailer park. We simply believe in justice for all. So skip the snob appeal and enjoy the slob appeal of Joe Don Baker in
Mitchell.
He may be crude, but Detective Mitchell’s no trigger-happy fascist. The film begins with him after a trade union lawyer who murdered a burglar in cold blood. That brings down heat from the brass, so Mitchell’s shuffled off to surveillance on heroin dealer Martin Balsam. As the cases turn out to be connected, Mitchell endures various humiliations while screwing over all the wiseguys.
Sadly,
Mitchell is now best known as the butt of jokes on
Mystery Science Theater 3000. It’s a typically lame episode where the chattering hosts can’t be funnier than the movie. Mitchell is already a comedy, as heard when Hoyt Axton’s theme song complains that the big lug isn’t anything like the cops in the movies. And when his superiors demand the impossible—getting a suspected hit man off the street with no chance of bail—Mitchell responds by shooting the killer in the leg.
It’s easy to see why Balsam took the role as the conniving old-school gangster. He’s pretty great, but Joe Don Baker is practically the new Buster Keaton. His deadpan demeanor gives
Mitchell a clear advantage over the crooked heroes of
Miami Vice.
Of course, Mitchell isn’t above enjoying himself when someone keeps sending high-class hooker Linda Evans to his house. He’s just as quick to haul her in for having some pot in her possession—after he’s enjoyed her perks for the night.
He also makes sure that the desk officer knows that Evans has enjoyed a close encounter of the Mitchell kind.
Miami Vice is never that honest, or that much fun.
Mitchell’s plot actually turns out to be worthy of an Elmore Leonard novel. (That same year, screenwriter Ian Kennedy Martin created the classic UK crime drama
The Sweeney.) Double-crosses pile up, but Mitchell proceeds with total faith in his own honesty. The only thing that really gets Mitchell upset is an idiot kid on a skateboard. The cops in
Miami Vice would never yell at a kid on a skateboard. They’d be too worried about looking uncool.
Make it your own: Someone must have let a copyright lapse, because there are
plenty of cheap Mitchell DVDs out there. The quality can still be pretty brutal. You’re better off seeking out an old VHS copy.
At least you’ll be getting real grain on the film, instead of the fake digital grain that makes
Miami Vice look like it’s being screened on a burlap bag. Or you can get the clean-but-severely-edited
version that ran on MST3K—if you don’t already have enough snide little creeps in your life.
