Dick Tracy (Warren Beatty) lives in a cartoon land. A land of primary colours. Where lines trail behind those that move, and we can see the people hiding in the shadows even if the characters in front of them cannot. In this land of make believe there is such a painstaking effort made to create authenticity to the source material, that you wonder why they didn’t just go the whole nine and use speech bubbles for the dialogue.
In this land filled with ne’er-do-wells, lies and cheats there is always the need for law and order, and the city does seem to have a large police presence. However it is only Tracy at the forefront, brave, noble, honest and donned in a garish yellow hat and coat combo from the Curious George Autumn range, Tracy is the epitome of all that is good standing – in profile – before evil and daring them to try something.
Evil on the other hand doesn’t sit around twiddling their thumbs. Featuring a cast of Hollywood’s Who’s Who of the late 80s – although you won’t recognize many under the caked makeup and prosthetics – the city’s underworld unites to impose their own crooked will on society.
When all appears doomed, a witness appears. A shapely witness in the form of Breathless Mahoney (Madonna), a lounge singer – slash – gangster’s moll who has hitched her heaving bosom onto the wagon pulled by the leader of all organized crime in the form of Big Boy Caprice (Al Pacino). A hot tempered crimelord with the name of a male stripper. Breathless also catches the perpetually squinted eye of one D. Tracy; policeman, not a huge surprise seeing as this was when Madonna was the biggest female star in the world, something that seems light years ago seeing her as a stringy old gym junkie English grandpa (seriously Madge, let it go).
With a proper girl already loyally at his side in the form of Tess Truehart, another more shapely siren in his sights, and the looming menace of organized crime threatening his beloved hometown, Tracy faces some tough decisions.
Unfortunately while the characters and production are as bright and colorful, the plot uses only the most basic of palettes, with too many greys and beiges to stand out. This is amazing given the caliber of the cast and the obviously big budget. The dough spent on the visuals and makeup were well spent though, I can’t recall another ‘comic book’ film that looks so much like the source material. Which brings me to my second and most significant issue; while Dick Tracy had the look, the songs (the soundtrack sold big), the money, the names (Beatty was big at this point, Madonna was even bigger), the fact is that even at their peak there have never been a million people buying comics.
Dick Tracy made a few bucks in its day, but not nearly as much suggested by the full court press spent on marketing and promotion upon release.
Having watched the film for the first time in decades, I can see why it took so long for comic book adaptations to become the behemoth of recent years. When something with so much going for it is this mediocre, what chance did the rest have?
Final Rating – 6.5 / 10. Ironic that the best aspects of the film are the same things that could already be found in the comic books.
