Don Johnson makes authority seem like good company, sometimes suspiciously so. We value the sadness beneath his swagger in Miami Vice and the slightly excessive charm he brings to the police chief in Watchmen.
Fi1m perspective
Sonny Crockett’s pastel clothes are easy to notice in Miami Vice (1984); Don Johnson makes the dissatisfaction beneath them worth watching. Alongside Philip Michael Thomas as Rico Tubbs, he gives us a reason to stay when the programme lets its police cases wait. We found the sadness more affecting than we expected, because Johnson makes Crockett enjoyable company before allowing his discontent to trouble us. The swagger matters: without that initial pleasure, the unhappiness would be considerably harder to care about.
The early seasons give him the strongest material; later episodes cannot always make their stories as interesting as their images. Edward James Olmos gives Martin Castillo a welcome gravity, leaving the leads room to be less settled. Johnson initially had trouble escaping slick-hero casting after Miami Vice, and took another television lead in Nash Bridges (1996). His later supporting work, including Django Unchained (2012), offered a different use for that familiar assurance: he could make an impression without having to carry the whole film.
Watchmen (2019) makes particularly good use of that authority. As Chief Judd Crawford, Johnson is more charming than the job requires, and the excess is what makes the performance interesting. Regina King gives Angela Abar a tired, furious severity beside him. Johnson does not need to compete with her anger to make us pay attention.
In Rian Johnson’s Knives Out (2019), his Richard Drysdale belongs to a wealthy family whose grievances are entertaining company. This is a good setting for Johnson’s ease in an ensemble, though the writing sometimes gives the actors too little freedom to surprise us. The relatives’ faults are firmly assigned, and some exchanges continue after making their point. Editor Bob Ducsay keeps the repeated visits to events purposeful, helping the film move along when the family might happily continue complaining.
We would still begin with the early Miami Vice episodes, where there is time to enjoy the company as well as the attitude. Then try Watchmen for the later Johnson. Be prepared for a series that takes its time supplying answers, rather longer than we sometimes wanted.
Biography
Don Johnson is an American actor. He was born on 15 December 1949 in Flat Creek, Missouri.
He is best known for portraying Detective James "Sonny" Crockett in the television series Miami Vice (1984–1989), for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series – Drama. He later starred as the title character in the series Nash Bridges (1996–2001).
Johnson has appeared in films including Machete (2010), Django Unchained (2012) and Knives Out (2019), in which he played Richard Drysdale. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1996.
