Dick Tracy: Bluray Review
Based on the 1930’s comic strip, this adaptation is directed by and starring Warren Beatty. When mob boss Alphonse “Big Boy” Caprice (Al Pacino) forces Lips Manlis (Paul Sorvino) to sign over his night club then kills him, Dick Tracy gets called in on the case. With the help of a young street thief named Kid he takes on Big Boy’s numerous thugs and tries to find enough evidence to put him away. One thing neither of them anticipated was an unknown mastermind pulling the strings on both ends. This person has greater plans and the means to possibly take over the city.
First off, it’s fantastic to finally see this movie getting the blu-ray treatment. Along with the stylized visuals of the film it looks really good in 1080p. This movie takes me back to when I was a kid. I remember seeing promos for it in comic books and on TV. After viewing it again as an adult I realized the extent of the cast itself. It really does come across as a “who’s who” in Hollywood at that time. With names like Al Pacino, Madonna, Dick Van Dyke, Dustin Hoffman, William Forsythte, Paul Sorvino, James Cann and Catherine O’Hara, it’s pretty stellar. Some of these actors you can’t even recognize with the special effects make-up involved to bring these (somewhat odd) characters to life. The other thing that I could really appreciate now is the FX of the film. If you go and look for all the Dick Tracy villains and compare them to the ones that were in the movie you can’t tell me that they weren’t pretty spot on. The story wasn’t the best and probably could’ve been expanded in certain spots but it wasn’t bothersome to the point where it was unwatchable. Sure, it was a bit campy too but that was/is to be expected given the source material and time setting it was based on. There was a moment in the film that Madonna is shown wearing a sheer robe and there are glimpses of her breasts being shown and I thought that was a bit much for a film that is supposed to be PG. Sadly, there are no special features with this release. Hopefully that changes eventually if a future re-release of this film is put out. A Dick Tracy retrospective would be really nice to see. In the end this film was a great trip down memory lane and it was fun to see it again. If you’re like me and enjoy a good noir-type film then this will definitely be one you have to pick up just for the visual aspect alone.
Dick Tracy comes to you December 11th from Touchstone Home Entertainment.
