Fox Movie Channel

Not Your Mom's Don Johnson

It's pretty typical for me to spend a lot of my time here at Fox Movie Channel looking at stuff ranging from old to really old. But that's not a bad thing - in fact, it's the basis of this whole blog, that I tell you about little gems that you probably haven't seen. And if you've been with me from the beginning, you've picked up a few things about what I most like in movies. I like hot guys that I can pretend are my boyfriends. I like good acting. I like it when film or television lifts you up and takes you wholly to a different world. I like romance best when it's impossible and I like action to occasionally be tempered by a dash of romance. I like most things from the early 80s and I particularly like 80s party scenes. In fact, I kind of want to live in an 80s party scene. Maybe with one of my fake boyfriends.

Essentially, all those add up to one thing, and that's Don Johnson. The only reason I've never mentioned Don Johnson before is that somehow, inexplicably, we don't have a Don Johnson movie in our catalogue. (HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?) So when I saw the trailer for Machete on our channel and saw that Don Johnson was in it, that was a golden moment for me. You're probably never going to stop me from watching Miami Vice reruns, but give me a Robert Rodriguez movie from 2010 with Don Johnson, Steven Seagal, Robert DeNiro, Michelle Rodriguez, Jessica Alba, Jeff Fahey and Cheech Marin and lots of pretty violence, and yeah, I'm gonna go see that. And because I work here, I was lucky enough to catch it already. So for the first time ever, I am going to discuss a new movie, but my real motive in breaking form is so I can write about Don Johnson. We can call it the Unvaulted Don Johnson Special Edition Detour.

Don Johnson is just one part of the Machete machine. This movie is everything you think it will be: lots of imaginative violence and creative killing, lots of fun, and an enormous, I mean ENORMOUS amount of fake blood. In a story with many villains, Jeff Fahey is really good as the sort of central villain. Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis excel at filming women looking crazy hot. I mean the women are really hot, but watch this movie and you will want to touch. Michelle Rodriguez looks incredible whether shooting a bad guy or serving a taco. And as for the titular Danny Trejo as Machete, just be warned that this guy can kill you with anything. Including your own body, though he prefers any kind of brutal sharp object. Cheech brings it, of course. And then there's Don Johnson.

He's not a hero in a white suit in this movie like he is in the picture on my mouse pad. And he's traded in the fashionable five o'clock shadow for Texas sideburns. But the biggest difference here versus some of his most iconic roles is that in Machete, Don Johnson plays a bad, bad dude. Not bad as in, "I, Sonny Crockett, due to an unfortunate explosion on a boat have temporarily forgotten that I am a righteous Vice cop and will instead live fully as my undercover bad guy drug lord alter ego Sonny Burnett for several episodes including the Season Four cliffhanger, but through the loyalty of my partner and perhaps the touch of a good woman will return to my true excellent self." Not like that. More bad than that: really bad, truly bad, bad enough to shoot a pretty girl in the face. Willing to kill lots of innocent folks and not flinch. Not a hero.

Do I like him any less? Not at all. I still want to see him in anything, anytime. In fact, while you're off catching Machete - for the blood and the violence and the beautiful girls in not-so-much clothing and the scene where Machete puts a weed whacker to some goon's face - I might be at an imaginary 80s party with my fake boyfriend Don Johnson. I'm just saying. I think he'd be a good date.