It is 2 a.m., time for a man to be murdered beneath a magnolia. Normally, one shot, and it would be over. Boom. Next? But a short, trim man in snappy blue pants with a red stripe and gray designer sweatshirt orders a test kill. If someone's going to die, he wants to make sure you'll “see the muzzle flash.”

Out comes a man with a gun. Bang. Perfect. He nods for the execution to proceed … But wait! Something's amiss. He jumps up, runs his hands through the victim's limp hair, musses it, summons the hairdresser: Fluff it before he dies.

“Most directors tell you what they want and let you do it,” sighs the exasperated French coiffeuse. “But he wants to touch everything – even down to fixing knots on ties and collars of people who aren't acting in his movie. He's a perfectionist. It can make life difficult.”

“Everyone off the sidewalk!” orders Michael Mann, 42, executive producer and chief stylistic overseer of TV's Miami Vice, this night stalking Atlanta as writer–director of Red Dragon [released in 1986 as Manhunter], an $11 million suspense thriller about a serial killer. Suddenly, he spies a dewy windshield on the killer's van.

“No, it's not all right,” he says. “Someone clean it.” Someone does. Fast. He may be short, but they call him “Sir.”

“He knows exactly what he wants,” shrugs executive producer Bernie Williams. “He does his homework. He tells you six weeks before he gets there: ‘Get me three cars with Illinois plates.’ He's very efficient and very demanding. But you make good pictures by being demanding.”

Michael Mann's fetish for detail has made the writer–director–producer one of the hottest triple threats in Hollywood today and Miami Vice a hit. Millions tune in to his bubbling Pop Cop bouillabaisse of sex, drugs, glitz, ritz, machine guns and rock ‘n’ roll.

As the hippest cop show on TV, Miami Vice spins its contemporary morality plays via staccato storytelling, heavy on glances, short on words, mood-setting pop rock and high-gloss color composition.

Some critics call this just another New Look formula, just a pink flamingo away from Hill Street Blues.