Dick TracySave

In Chicago during the 1930s, Detective Dick Tracy (Warren Beatty) leads the Chicago Police Department's investigation into the city's organisizd crime networks. Tracy is the city's most-respected detective — methodical, incorruptible, and equipped with a state-of-the-art two-way wrist radio that allows him to maintain constant communication with his fellow officers. The opening establishes Tracy as a man defined by his commitment to the law; his fiancée Tess Trueheart (Glenne Headly) provides the film's primary romantic anchor.

Tracy's investigation focuses on Alphonse 'Big Boy' Caprice (Al Pacino in his Oscar-nominated supporting role), the city's most-powerful crime boss who controls multiple legitimate and illegitimate enterprises. Big Boy has been consolidating power across multiple Chicago crime families, killing or driving out his rivals; the film's primary narrative tension is Tracy's gradual investigation of Big Boy's organisization. Pacino's performance — flamboyantly theatrical, with extensive prosthetic-and-padded makeup — is widely cited as the film's strongest creative element.

Madonna's Breathless Mahoney — a torch-song nightclub singer with a complicated history with both Tracy and Big Boy — is the film's primary romantic complication. Breathless is romantically involved with Big Boy but is increasingly attracted to Tracy; her allegiance shifts throughout the film. Madonna's performance combined her established musical-star presence with substantial dramatic commitment; she contributed multiple original songs to the film's soundtrack, including the Stephen Sondheim-composed 'Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man).'

The film's villain gallery is one of cinema's most-extensive ensemble adaptations of a comic-book franchise. Big Boy's lieutenants include Flattop Jones (William Forsythe), Itchy Oliver (Ed O'Ross), Mumbles (Dustin Hoffman in his uncredited cameo), Pruneface (R. G. Armstrong), the Brow (Chuck Hicks), Influence (Henry Silva), and Stooge Viller (Charles Durning). Each character wears extensive prosthetic makeup designed to translate their comic-book physiognomies into live-action; the makeup work was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Makeup.

The film's primary plot involves the orphan boy 'Kid' (Charlie Korsmo) — a homeless street child whose mother was killed during one of Big Boy's enforcement actions. Tracy informally adopts Kid; their developing father-son relationship provides substantial emotional weight to the film's middle sections. Kid's eventual decision to adopt Tracy's surname and become 'Dick Tracy Jr.' is the film's primary emotional anchor; the relationship anchors Tracy's commitment to the family-and-fatherhood theme that the film's broader plot tests.

The film's middle act consists of Tracy's gradual infiltration of Big Boy's operation. Tracy uses his two-way wrist radio to coordinate undercover surveillance; he places informants throughout Big Boy's organisization. His most successful infiltration occurs through Breathless Mahoney, whose increasingly developing romantic feelings for Tracy compromise her loyalty to Big Boy. Multiple action sequences during this period feature Tracy directly engaging with various of Big Boy's henchmen in choreographed combat.

The film's primary action set-piece is the assault on Big Boy's Club Ritz — Big Boy's primary nightclub headquarters. Tracy and a small force of Chicago police officers raid the establishment; the resulting battle features extensive ensemble combat with multiple of Big Boy's lieutenants. Several characters die during the Club Ritz raid; Tracy is wounded but ultimately succeeds in disrupting Big Boy's primary operation. The sequence is the film's most-extended choreographed action; the practical-effects firearms work was reportedly the most-elaborate of any 1990 theatrical release.

The film's third act features Tracy's final confrontation with Big Boy in Big Boy's underground vault. Big Boy attempts to bribe Tracy with substantial cash; Tracy refuses. The confrontation ends with Big Boy attempting to escape through a hidden tunnel; Tracy pursues and ultimately captures him alive, returning him to Chicago police custody. The film's epilogue shows Big Boy's empire being dismantled, Tracy's adoption of Kid being formalised, and his engagement to Tess Trueheart being finalisizd. Breathless Mahoney is revealed to have been the mysterious Blank — the masked figure who had been killing off Big Boy's lieutenants for personal revenge.