Film

Dick Tracy

Name: Dick Tracy
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Crime
Released: 1990
Cast: Warren Beatty, Al Pacino, Madonna, Dustin Hoffman, James Caan

Dick Tracy is less a detective story than a moving comic strip — Warren Beatty poured a fortune into matte-painted skylines, primary-colour suits, and prosthetic gangsters lifted straight off Chester Gould's panels. It's brisk, cartoonish and gleefully artificial, with Al Pacino chewing latex scenery and Madonna smouldering through torch songs. Watch it for the commitment to a bold visual gimmick, not for depth.

TMDb rating

6.2

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Same matte-painted period Los Angeles, same earnest pulp-hero spirit, same Disney-backed nostalgia for old adventure serials — a boyish throwback with real heart and a similarly stylised skyline.

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The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

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Prohibition-era gangster spectacle with a righteous lawman against an untouchable crime boss, De Palma's operatic violence, sharp tailoring, and real period grandeur.

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Robert Altman's earlier, stranger attempt to translate a comic strip's exaggerated visual world into live-action sets, defiantly odd and lovingly stylised.

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