Dick Tracy (1990)

Plot of Dick Tracy: In an unnamed American city gang leader Big Boy Caprice makes a bid to take over all criminal activities by eliminating the opposition. The killing of the participants in a card game is witnessed by a singer, Breathless Mahony and a boy, The Kid. Detective Dick Tracy pursues Big Boy and tries to get Breathless to become a witness, she in return tries to seduce him. Meanwhile Tracy and is girlfriend Tess Truelove more or less accidentally become wards of the boy. Tracy manages to insert his friend, Bug Bailey into Big Boy’s nightclub and so is able to anticipate the criminal’s activities, but is framed for the murder of the District Attorney. Later Tracy is released but it is not all over as Big Boy finds Bug in his attic and kidnaps Tess, who has called Tracy in a effort to resolve their differences.

Content: No sex, but Breathless sings and acts seductively and is seen in vary revealing costumes. There is drinking. The whole film is comically presented with the villains made up grotesquely and everyone wearing clothing in primary colours. Cars are also presented in primary colours except for the police cars which are silver and black. Dick Tracy is always dressed the same in a yellow overcoat and hat. The scenery is cartoonish in presentation being mostly painted. There are many scenes of villains and also police shooting it out with Thompson submachine guns. A gangster who does not accept Big Boy’s leadership is blown up. Tracy escaping from a boiler primed to blow up with the help of The Kid is comically presented There are frequent scenes of The Kid eating under the benevolent eye of Tracy and Tess.

A View: Roger Ebert gave this outing four stars out of four and the film won some art related awards at the Oscars. Even though it made money the then head of Disney did not think it had been worth the effort. I really enjoyed the presentation, but of course, if the film is presented in a comedic way, any attempt to create tension is more or less pointless. It is probably worth a watch if you are a film buff, but if you like shoot’em ups you should not be beguiled  by any of the publicity. Maybe you could have it on for nothing while doing something else.

Fun Fact: Madonna was paid $35,000 for her appearance in the movie.