Warren Beatty had long contemplated playing the comic-strip cop (under assorted directors), but only after a screen version of Batman had pulled in a zillion dollars, give or take, did he at last discover the wisdom, the ingenuity, the genius, the vision, to go ahead on the project, and with himself as the director as well as the star. Of course we all were briefed, if not thoroughly brainwashed, as to the notion that Dick Tracy is nothing at all like Batman; that Batman was "dark," whereas Dick is all primary and secondary colors, in fact is no other colors than the seven used by Chester Gould in his original newspaper strip -- a stroke of "genius" of the most literal-minded and copycatting type, like John Huston doing a biography of Toulouse-Lautrec in a Toulousian color scheme, or like somebody, anybody, everybody doing a costume drama in the visual manner of Vermeer or Rembrandt or Claude Lorrain. Needless to add, Beatty does not pursue the logic of this to the extreme of doing the movie six-sevenths of the time in black-and-white (or, allowing for the longer Sunday strip, three-quarters of the time). But after all: why not? Nor does he pursue the logic of the makeup effects beyond Pruneface and Flattop and the rest of the gangster galère all the way to the eagle-beaked and equally unhuman Dick Tracy. Not, at any rate, as long as soft-spoken and soft-focussed Warren Beatty is to be the one to play him. Given a choice between genius and good looks, Beatty is not going to risk looking the fool. That said, there is nevertheless some fun to be had in these and the other design elements of the production -- or, less flatteringly put, the static elements -- even if you must fight through a glaze of satiation to get at it. With Madonna, Glenne Headly, Al Pacino, and Dustin Hoffman. (1990) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.