Miami Vice: Fighting Crime in Style... and Pastels

Detectives come in all colors: Trench-coat tan, fedora black or gray, calabash pipe mahogany, or, if a member of the vice squad in Miami, Florida, in the mid-80s, a lot of pastels. Created by Anthony Yerkovich and executive produced by film writer/director Michael Mann, Miami Vice premiered in September 1984 on NBC. The series focused on two partners: Detective James “Sonny” Crockett (Don Johnson) and Detective Ricardo “Rico” Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas).

Reportedly, creator Yerkovich’s starting point was a memo from NBC exec Brandon Tartikoff which simply read, “MTV cops.” The most popular and most memorable aspects of Miami Vice, even over 25 years later, are its colors and music. Whites, pinks, and light blues would cover the screen, from characters’ attire to the cars they were driving and even the main title. Music would propel the narrative, not simply Jan Hammer’s celebrated theme, but a number of popular hit songs of the time appearing in each episode. They truly were “MTV cops,” with the loud, aggressive opening credits sequence and a multitude of transitional scenes looking very much like music videos.

Miami Vice was one of the first TV shows to routinely use current hit songs, a number of them Top 40 hits that many viewers would recognize. These songs were typically incorporated into the narrative: Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” played during a moody night drive as the cops consider their next move, The Tubes’ “She’s a Beauty” while a pretty young lady exercises in fashionable 80s aerobics gear, and Honeymoon Suite’s “New Girl Now”, a song telling an ex-girlfriend that there’s “a new girl now,” played while Crockett initiates an investigation to help his ex. It was not uncommon to see musicians appear on the show, including Collins, Sheena Easton (as Mrs. Crockett), Glenn Frey, Isaac Hayes, Frank Zappa and Willie Nelson. The series also starred well known actors such as Pam Grier, Dean Stockwell, Eartha Kitt, Tommy Chong and Clarence Williams III, and early performances from future stars such as Bruce Willis, Ed O’Neill, Laurence Fishburne, Jimmy Smits, Charles S. Dutton, Dennis Farina, Kyra Sedgwick, Vincent D’Onofrio, and numerous others. Some of these stars ended up as regulars on other cop/detective shows: Willis (Moonlighting), Fishburne (CSI), Smits (NYPD Blue), Farina (Crime Story; Mann was executive producer), Sedgwick (The Closer) and D’Onofrio (Law & Order: Criminal Intent).

But for all its flash, Miami Vice remained a show about detectives. Sonny Crockett is a headstrong, chain-smoking detective, in spite of his casual dress and perpetual five o’clock shadow. At the beginning of the series, his partner, Eddie (Smits), is killed while the two are working undercover, his estranged wife (Belinda Montgomery) wants a divorce and is planning on moving and taking their six-year-old son with her, and Crockett is engaged in an intimate relationship with another detective, Gina (Saundra Santiago).

Rico Tubbs could sometimes be a hothead, but his infallible undercover work and his grace under pressure made him a reputable detective. Tubbs is in actuality not a detective when he first encounters Crockett, but a New York patrol officer. He’s in Miami having tailed a drug lord, Calderone, who’s responsible for his brother’s murder (Rico uses his brother’s detective badge to get assigned to the case). By the second episode, Tubbs is a Miami detective and working with Crockett, having ruined his chances of returning to his old job in New York with his personal and unauthorized investigation.

Crockett and Tubbs are initially and appropriately contrasted via colors. The pilot episode opens with Tubbs sitting in a car in New York, shrouded in the blackness of night. After sending two-bit punks scurrying away by letting them see the business end of his sawed-off double barrel shotgun, Tubbs follows Calderone into a seedy, pitch-black nightclub, and a confrontation leads into a deserted alleyway littered with garbage. The opening credits roll, with rapid-fire images of a bright, bustling Miami, and introduces Crockett dressed in a white jacket and slacks and a pastel blue T-shirt. He and Eddie are working a case, but the drive to a meet is in a convertible, still in the open air and the radiant sunlight. Even after arriving in Miami, Tubbs stands out at the airport, dances wildly at a dimly lit strip club to Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me” and while adorned in a gaudy T-shirt (almost as if he’s mocking the city he’s visiting), and has his first meeting (and high speed chase) with Crockett at night.
“This is Miami,” Cockett says to Tubbs. “Things are more relaxed.” In terms of fashion, Crockett is most definitely correct. His standard outfit -- light colors, a jacket/T-shirt combo, loafers sans socks -- became an immensely popular Miami Vice trait, not simply a characteristic, but a pop culture stylistic preference. Tubbs, on the other hand, typically wears suits, with more muted colors, double-breasted jackets and button-down shirts. Even if Tubbs wears no tie and has his dress shirt partially unbuttoned to show his chest and gold necklace (which he frequently does), he still looks more formal than his partner. Crockett’s mellow threads, however, don’t seem to carry over to his undercover work, as he sits back and smokes his Lucky Strike cigarettes with attitude, more than a little standoffish. Tubbs, in full suit and tie, is charming and in his element, often seizing the attention of anyone in the room. Tubbs was likely intended to be more straitlaced than Crockett, but something he says to his partner -- “I’m always ready” -- seems to exemplify his personality. His sincere determination makes him trustworthy and valuable, while Crockett tends to wear exasperation on his face, his problems apparent without having to say a word. In this case, clothes do not make the man. They only make him look snazzy.

Other detectives showcased on Miami Vice include partners Gina and Trudy (Olivia Brown), who sometimes walk the beat posing as prostitutes, and Detectives Switek (Michael Talbott) and Zito (John Diehl), who often handled surveillance jobs. Both pairs seem to express Crockett and Tubbs’ strongest characteristics: Gina and Trudy as the hard working, first-rate detectives, Switek and Zito the lighthearted comic relief. When the series begins, Lt. Lou Rodriguez (Gregory Sierra) is the commander, but after he’s killed in the line of duty, Lt. Martin Castillo (Edward James Olmos) takes over the unit. Olmos is outstanding in a role he would retain for the remainder of the series (he won an Emmy and a Golden Globe and was nominated again for both). He rarely speaks, opting to stare people down in lieu of making a point with words. In his premiere episode, “One Eyed Jack”, Castillo is confronted by Tubbs. He whispers his line, “Don’t ever come up to my face like this again, Detective,” and it’s more potent than if he had physically assaulted the man. Olmos would lead a much different team in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica as Commander Adama (and later moving in rank to Admiral).

Though Michael Mann neither created the series nor directed the pilot episode, his gritty style is apparent throughout Miami Vice. The music-video approach and overwhelming colors offset the seriousness associated with cops infusing themselves into the lives of criminals. In 2006, Mann wrote, directed and produced a big screen adaptation of the series, starring Colin Farrell as Sonny Crockett and Jamie Foxx as Rico Tubbs. It also starred popular Chinese actress, Gong Li, and featured Elizabeth Rodriguez as Gina, Naomie Harris as Trudy, Justin Theroux as Zito, Domenick Lombardozzi as Switek, and Barry Shabaka Henley as Lt. Castillo. Mann’s film is decisively darker, both in terms of tone and cinematography. It’s entertaining and well made, though it could have used some pastels.

Movies and TV shows with working partners often employ the buddy formula, pitting two persons together who are seemingly polar opposites but find common ground. Crockett and Tubbs are established as opposites, and this concept is maintained in future episodes as Tubbs will occasionally complain about the Miami way of living. But on the job, Tubbs is impeccable, fitting in just as well as, if not better than, Crockett. Miami Vice sought to please its audience visually, but its greatest strength was as a character study, watching how both of these men would adjust to each new case. Because underneath those pastel blues and pinks and those shiny gray suits were two exemplary -- and highly watchable -- vice cops.