I was all in on the Dick Tracy movie as a kid. Dick Tracy was a real passion project of Warren Beatty and you can tell he gave this movie everything that he had. Not only is he the star of the movie, Beatty also directed it and had plans for Dick Tracy to be this big franchise, but Disney was not keen on the idea and the film rights were a legal nightmare for many years.
How to Download Dick Tracy
Dick Tracy was released on June 15, 1990. You can download or stream the film from a digital platform. Click on the Download button at the end of this review and make your choice.
The Movie Review
Back in 1990, Dick Tracy was such a huge deal. I think for many kids at the time, Dick Tracy was the next big thing after Batman which came out the previous year. Dick Tracy had a very aggressive advertising campaign and I remember really being into the action figures and the video game for the NES was on the top of my birthday list later in the year, which was a bad move as that game sucked!
I was not familiar with the Dick Tracy show that came before this, to me, Dick Tracy was something new and exciting. While Batman in 89 was so dark, Dick Tracy was very colorful, it has a very unique style, a style that really made it stand out at the time. It is impossible to think of Dick Tracy without thinking of the color yellow.
Classic Cop vs. Mob Story
This is a classic, cop vs. the mob story. The 1930s setting is awesome and the city is being ruled by a crime boss called Big Boy who is played perfectly by Al Pacino (check him out in Ocean’s Thirteen (2007), Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), or The Irishman (2019). Big Boy and his goons have a tight grip on the city and his crime empire is growing by the day and it looks like it is near impossible to stop him.
Well for a normal cop, it would be! Dick Tracy steps up and goes toe to toe with Big Boy and his entire criminal organization. This whole cops and robbers thing was so much fun as a kid and while it was a formula that was certainly nothing new. I am sure for many kids who watched this back in 1990, it was a somewhat new and unique premise for a movie to have.
Complex Characters and Relationships
That alone would make for a fun movie, but there is more depth here. There is a bit of a love triangle with Dick Tracy and his true love, Tess Trueheart and Breathless Mahoney who is played by Madonna. Madonna being in this movie was a huge deal back when it came out and she is fantastic! I feel that she was cast perfectly and the contrast between her character and Tess is great.
Another character in Dick Tracy is The Blank. There was a real mystique about who The Blank was and the action figures even tried to disguise it in a fun way. To this day, The Blank is one of my favorite 90s action figures. Speaking of which, while I love the Dick Tracy action figures, these are things you see for dirt cheap at most toy conventions, more often than not still on the card.
Nostalgia and Modern Appeal
I loved Dick Tracy as a kid and I still enjoy it now, but it is a product of its time. I remember being excited to get my son to watch this and he was not into it at all, but I still think this is a fun time and I hope that we get a 4K release as the DVD and the Blu-Ray releases that we have had are so barebones! With Warren Beatty loving this movie and franchise, I am sure he would be up for some kind of special release.
