Director Warren Beatty
Starring Warren Beatty, Madonna, Al Pacino
Rated PG
Score 5/6

All Tess Trueheart wants is to settle down to a quiet life with her boyfriend, detective Dick Tracy. But there’s something pretty rotten going on in town, with someone pretty rotten behind it, and Tracy has his hands full with the likes of villain Big Boy Caprice and with the almost irresistible Breathless Mahoney.

Before I get to far into things, there is one thing the poster for this movie is brilliant.

I could be wrong, but I have vague memories of seeing this one in the cinema. The first that struck me about this movie was its production design and how much it felt that I was watching a comic book. I didn’t get the impression that Dick Tracy openly embraced what it is to be a comic book movie to the extent that say the Asterix and Obelix live action movies have, but there it certainly came close. It was also interesting to see how much the visual style of the movie reminded me of movies of the early 2000’s such as Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez’s 2005 movie Sin City and Frank Miller’s 2008 movie The Spirit.
Al Pacino’s performance as Big Boy Caprice definitely rounds out the top 3 most scene chewing performances joining Tim Curry as Cardinal Richelieu and Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham. I enjoyed Dustin Hoffman as Mumbles especially his moment of humanity towards the end of the movie. Both Glenne Headly as Tess Trueheart and Charlie Korsmo as the Kid gave great performances, I loved the moments they had along with Warren Beatty had in the diner. I enjoyed Madonna’s performance as Breathless Mahoney, when Mahoney was first introduced, she had a Jessica Rabbit vibe. I feel that it could be argued that the character is iconic and there a few writers of some of the more recent comic book movies could learn a lesson from how her character was used.