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List Price: $9.99 | | Label: Walt Disney Video
Salesrank: 3531
Released: April 2, 2002 |
| Our Price: $3.59 |
| Used Price: $3.40 |
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MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Legendary police detective Dick Tracy is the only man tough enough to take on gangster boss Big Boy Caprice and his band of menacing mobsters. Dedicated to his work but at the same time devoted to his loyal girlfriend, Tess Trueheart, Tracy find himself torn between love and duty. His relentless crusade against crime becomes even more difficult when he gets saddled with an engaging orphan and meets seductive and sultry Breathless Mahoney, a torch singer determined to get the best of Tracy. A faceless character, the Blank, threatens both Tracy and Big Boy, and it takes all of Tracy's skills to save the city.
Description of Dick Tracy:
A flawed but stylish adaptation of the Chester Gould comic strip by director Warren Beatty, who also stars in the title role. The minimalist plot involves a battalion of baddies who confront the intrepid detective in a series of strung-together vignettes. Al Pacino is a comedic if overblown standout as Big Boy Caprice, and Madonna simply smolders as aggressive blonde bombshell Breathless Mahoney. It matters not that the plot is Spartan, as this dazzling eye candy is much enhanced by Stephen Sondheim's songs, including the Academy Award-winning ditty, "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)." Beatty took his cue from the source material and concentrated on the relationships between these people, whether strained, romantic, or hateful. The performances are subtle and more amusing than you would expect from such a visually bold picture. Shot in bright, primary colors, this also won Oscars for Best Art/Set Direction and Makeup (for those inventively hideous criminals). Watch for well-known names, such as Dustin Hoffman and Dick Van Dyke, in cameo appearances and supporting roles. --Rochelle O'Gorman
Dick Tracy Reviews:
"Calling Dick Tracy! Calling Dick Tracy!" 
2009-10-20 - Who would have thought that they could take the original Dick Tracy comics and faithfully turn it into a full-length movie? It's a fun movie, with some outstanding performances from an all-star cast. Warren Beatty, Madonna, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Kathy Bates, Paul Sorvino, James Caan, William Forsythe, and more. Many of them have excessive make-up in order for them to look exactly like the characters in the comics. Pacino is probably the only one that does not look like the original character ("Big Boy" Caprice), since he created the design himself! But the actors and the characters that they portray aren't the only good things in this movie. We also have some stunning set designs, provocative cinematography, a near-perfect score from Danny Elfman, and some pretty dark humor. Although it's not as epic as the original Batman by Tim Burton, it still is a fun and beautiful film. Kudos to Beatty and everyone else involved in the film.
Waste of time and $ 
2009-09-29 - This movie began well, with imaginative settings, colors, and faces, but soon I was wishing it was over. The plot is like mashed potatoes--a mushy blob, and the characters have very little depth.
Madonna did a great job with the songs, although I don't particularly care to see her cleavage.
There is violence, including machine gun shootouts, men being shot point-blank, and a man buried alive in cement as he's dropped into the river. I don't recall any bad language.
Recommended: National Treasure
Best Gangster Movie of All time.....ok maybe not, but hella awesome nonetheless.
2009-09-17 - I was pretty excited to find this movie on DVD. I was even more excited to find it under ten bucks. It arrived quickly, in pristine condition and played flawlessly.
Al Pacino rocks!
FLAT TOP
2009-06-16 - Like an earlier reviewer so cleverly said, the less you know about the strip, the more you'll enjoy the film!
"Dick Tracy" is not a movie about the strip, but about the memories it evokes. Unfortunately, you'll have to be eighty years old to have those! (the Tracy I recall was a boring TV cartoon that flied around in a trashcan). And chances are even so your memory will trick you, for the strip itself was anything BUT "nice clean fun".
A failed masterpiece that -literally- ended up in the moon, "Dick Tracy" was in its heyday a cartoonist's personal crusade against organized crime. Outraged by the murder of fellow Chicago journalist Jake Lingle (who turned out to be corrupt), cartoonist Chester Gould created Tracy as his way of exposing criminals for what they were, and what should be done with them. For him, they were the scum of the earth: human souls of such deformity, it even reflected on their features. Thus there was no joke on The Brow's brow, or on Flattop's flat top. These guys were not ugly villains, but true human monsters.
Confident of its Law & Order moral framework, the strip had no qualms about depicting sordid situations (sons murdering their parents, lovers quarrels with knives, villains getting impaled, victims beheaded, teenagers drowned, etc.), much to the delight of its millions of young readers. Today,"political correctness" would make such a comic strip unthinkable, but back then no one thought of it that way. People saw it as a simple Good vs. Evil moral story, where bad guys are ugly and good guys always win. "Nice clean fun".
And that's just what appears in the movie. A bland and predictable story, sugarcoated in eye candy. It's all make believe visual nostalgia in bright colors and retro cars. Lots of fedoras, spats, tommy-guns and badges, in a fantasy 1930's American city full of newsboys wearing caps, sodajerks in bowties, Chinamen with pigtails, and elevated trains against the sunset. Shanties swing when hosting fistfights, boilers tremble before they explode, calligraphy gets written with bullets, and entire gangs fly through the air if they face Tracy up front. To top it all, there's an all star cast in outlandish makeup, several catchy Stephen Sondheim songs, and even a Madonna nipple if you look for it. Enjoy!
P.S.: To most older people, Ralph Byrd was THE Dick Tracy of the movies. Actually, he sucked! Warren Beatty does an acceptable performance here, but nothing to write home about. Me, I always thought Robert Stack had Dick Tracy in mind when portraying Eliot Ness on TV. "The Untouchables" itself is closer to the spirit of the Tracy comic strip than this movie is. As for looks, Victor Mature would have made the ideal silver screen Tracy. Alas, he never played the part.
One of the best comic book adaptations, next to Sin City
2009-06-08 - I've been watching "Dick Tracy" for years, and as a result it's become a vital part of my life - it was with me throughout childhood and I used to see it quite often. Seeing it now, as an adult, it's still a very good movie - dark, satiric and incredibly misunderstood. About the only thing that can be said is the Oscar nomination Pacino received - other than that it is rarely discussed and didn't make much of a fuss when it came out.
Pacino is over-the-top but to good effect as he's clearly having loads of fun. Beatty is great as Dick Tracy and behind the camera manages to capture the atmosphere of a film noir comic book better than any other film, possibly, I have ever seen. Just taking a look at one scene from the film is breathtaking. The lighting, velvet overtones and smog/smoke combine to create a great effect.
There are some really funny cameos including one by Dustin Hoffman as "Mumbles," and I don't think there are any flaws at all in terms of acting - even the mandatory kid-character is far better than expected.
Overall, a really fine movie that has become misunderstood over the years since its release and is incredibly underrated. The critics' reviews are very positive (check out RottenTomatoes.com) and after seeing the film once again it's not hard to see why - this is a perfect example of capturing the essence of a comic book, from style to eccentricity.
