Dick Tracy (1990)

Dick Tracy (1990)

Director: Warren Beatty

Cast:  Warren Beatty, Madonna, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Charlie Korsmo, William Forsythe, Mandy Patinkin, Catherine O’Hara, James Caan, Dick Van Dyke, Kathy Bates

The 90’s brought on the rebirth of the big budget comic book movie (which had been dead since Richard Donner’s Superman films) thanks to the phenomenal worldwide success of Tim Burton’s Batman (1989), suddenly every studio wanted to make a comic book movie, the problem was they didn’t know how to go about it. For some reason, they got the idea in their heads that going with ancient comic book heroes like The Phantom (1996) and The Shadow (1994) was a good idea. And even when they did do original comic book films, they went with a comic book that paid tribute to all those old heroes called The Rocketeer (1991). The studios hadn’t figured out yet that people really wanted the more contemporary heroes like Spiderman and the X-Men, which is probably why a lot of those old school comic book movies tanked at the box office. Batman made kajillions because the character had remained alive in the collective consciousness because Batman has always remained in print, it had its own television show and it became a part of popular culture. Not so with the older characters, which though not entirely dead, were not as recognized by modern audiences. In other words, characters like The Shadow and The Phantom all had their day back in the 30’s and 40’s. Today’s kids aren’t really familiar with these characters. The same can be said of Dick Tracy, Chester Gould’s hard boiled detective that started out in comic strips, on news papers, three little squares of story per week. The strip was such hit that they made Dick Tracy serials, radio shows, b-movies, you name it. Unfortunately, Tracy never got the big screen treatment that Chester Gould wanted. That is until Warren Beatty came along and directed this here picture.

I remember seeing Dick Tracy in theaters, that awesome summer of 1990. It was a big summer as far as blockbuster movies go. Squished in between big action films like Robocop 2 (1990), Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990) and Total Recall (1990), Beatty’s Dick Tracy (1990) seemed tame in comparison, it made my 15 year old mind wonder if it was going to make it a the box office. I remember there was a big publicity push for the movie, Disney (under the Buena Vista Pictures banner) made sure you knew about the film one way or another, right down to selling Madonna’s soundtrack ‘I’m Breathless’, which by the way I really dug and still own to this day. Was the film a huge hit in theaters? Well, it didn’t lose money, but it wasn’t the smash hit that they were expecting either. The smash hit of that summer was Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore in Ghost (1990). Dick Tracy ended up making  162 million dollars worldwide, a figure that didn’t impress its producers and probably the main reason we never saw a sequel. But who cares what producers think right? At the end of the day, what we really care about is if the movie was good or not.  And in my opinion, Dick Tracy was excellent; the problem was that Dick Tracy was a hero from another era, with a big budget film that came many decades too late.

But if you can see past the fact that Dick Tracy is a hero from the 30’s you can actually have a lot of fun with this movie. While I understand why the masses shy away from anything they consider ‘old’ or ‘passé’, I personally enjoy all types of films, I don’t just watch contemporary things, I can appreciate the many attributes that a film like Dick Tracy has to offer, for example, it’s a beautiful film to look at. Warren Beatty aimed to make a film that looked like the comic strips; so he went with a color palette composed of primary colors that leap off the screen; this movie is pure eye candy, a vibrant kaleidoscope of colors! Dick Tracy was made using old school filmmaking techniques and I have a great appreciation for films made using miniatures and matte paintings to create city landscapes, I just love that about films made this way. The interesting thing is that Dick Tracy was made just before computer generated effects were about to take over, so it’s one of the last films to be made this way. I think that Beatty wanted to purposely make an old school film, same way that Coppola purposely used old school visual effects to make Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992). In this way, the director evokes a bygone era of filmmaking; Beatty wanted to take us back in time. And he achieved it if you ask me. We go back to a time when hardboiled detectives were out on the streets trying to solve the crime, getting the bad guys in the big bad city. In this way Dick Tracy is an interesting film because it has elements of film noir, yet it’s also colorful and vibrant, bringing together an interesting mix of genres and styles.

The cast is something truly amazing! Beatty as Tracy is pitch perfect casting if you ask me. Beatty has said that they tried applying fake noses and jaws on him to make him look more like Gould’s sketches and that ultimately they decided not to go with it because it would distract audiences. I think it was a great idea because Tracy’s normality goes in direct contrast to the downright grotesque villains. And while the villains are comic book monsters, Tracy is human, he’s all about heart. He’s Tracy, the ultimate good guy who is in many ways like Superman, the embodiment of all that is good and pure in humanity. He’s loyal to the love of his life, Tess Truehart even though Breathless Mohoney is trying to eat him up every chance she gets. Tracy’s such a good guy; he wants to adopt an orphan he picks up from the streets. He’s all about the law and doing what’s right, he’s honest and hard working, he wants to get the bad guys. He’s the ultimate do gooder. His counterpart is Al Pacino’s Big Boy Caprice, one of Pacino’s most over the top performances, he got an Oscar nomination for this performance. He just goes nuts here. Madonna as Breathless Mahoney oozes sensuality, you have to understand this was Madonna at the peak of her youthful beauty, she was so damn sexy in those days! She exploits that sensuality for all its worth. Every line Breathless speaks is in double entendres. Then we have Big Boys gang, which is composed of a who’s who of character actors like William Forsythe, Ed O Ross and Paul Sorvino. We also get big name actors playing smaller roles, like Dustin Hoffman playing ‘Mumbles’ one of Big Boys men, who, as his name suggests, mumbles everything he says. All these characters make the film an amalgam of craziness straight out of a comic book, made all the more interesting because each and every one of these actors are made up to look exactly like Gould’s original drawings. Which I’m sure made making this film, a huge challenge, I mean, having all those actors in make up at the same time!

The icing on this Dick Tracy cake is the music! The orchestral score was composed by the always excellent Danny Elman. His score is grandiose and epic, similar in many ways to his score for Batman (1989), but then again, that’s the exact reason why Elfman was hired, Beatty was impressed with Elfman’s score for Batman (1989). Then we have the soundtrack, written by Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim and sung by Madonna, it makes for one of Madonna’s most unique albums. It’s fun, retro and heartfelt. So as you can see, many awesome elements came together to make Dick Tracy an extremely unique film, a trip back in time to simpler times when good was good and evil was evil, no place for in betweens; or is there? At the end of the day, while Tracy is always out to get Big Boy and his gang, this film is really about Tracy having to decide between pleasure and sensuality over true love, marriage, kids and possibly becoming a family man. Which one will he choose? Tracy is torn between being a bachelor or becoming a family, some say this mirrored Warren Beatty’s own personal life, after all, Beatty was the ultimate bachelor back in his day. So anyhow, I’ve gone on long enough, bottom line is Dick Tracy is an excellent comic book movie, dare I say one of the best ones ever, an excellent production from beginning to end.  

Rating:  5 out of 5  

    

Stone Cold (1991)

Title: Stone Cold (1991)

Director: Craig R. Baxley

Cast: Brian Bosworth, Lance Henriksen, William Forsythe

Review:

I put Stone Cold, under the same category as Sylvester Stallone’s Cobra (1986), you know, balls to the wall action with a testosterone levels that are off the charts. Right from this movies opening sequence, you can tell the director was using Cobra as a blue print. It starts out with some ass kicking in a supermarket, just like Cobra did. Brian Bosworth is dressed pretty much the same way Stallone was in Cobra, with long black trench coat, black cowboy boots and blue jeans. This film comes to us from director Craig R. Baxley who gave us Action Jackson (1988) and  I Come in Peace (1990), both of which aren’t bad action films at all. Having directed these two action films is probably what got him the job to direct this one. It’s a macho movie every step of the way. A guys film. It’s got giant motorcycles, naked chicks left and right, explosions, fights, guns, dudes kicking the hell out of each other, a biker gang. I don’t think a movie could be more 'macho' then this one.

A motorcycle gang is terrorizing the streets. The kind of gang that you don’t want to mess with. The kind of gang that if you mess with one of them, you mess with the whole lot of them. Kind of like the way the Hell’s Angels grew in the United States back in the 70’s, to the point where they had chapters everywhere. Basically, they are a bunch of red neck, hillbilly, rebels who don’t want to work 9-5. They’d rather, party 24-7, be hammered 24-7 and party like its 1999. You know, the kind of biker gang that don’t like to bathe, shave or do anything proper. They want to go against the rules! They want to smash your face! You piss them off and they answer with a sucker punch right to your balls! So basically, in Stone Cold, this motorcycle gang is pissed at some politician because he wants to make the death penalty a must in his state. The bikers don’t like that, so they want to wipe him out.

So wow, where do I start? Well, I guess the best place to start would be by talking about the films star: Brian Bosworth. He was a football player for the Seattle Seahawks back in the 80s. You know, the guy that got run over by Bo Jackson. So anyways, after a lackluster career in Football, the guy decides he is going to be movie star, making action films for Hollywood. His first stab at filmmaking wasn’t all that bad. Stone Cold, with all its cheesiness and 80s mentality is actually a decent action flick.

It’s got all the right ingredients for a good action flick. The idea behind this movie is, Bosworth goes undercover and becomes a member of the biker gang, to try and stop the assassination attempt. Its basic plotline is very similar to that of Kathryn Bigelow’s Point Break, which was released on the same year. If you remember correctly, Keanu has to try and infiltrate the gang of surfers who are holding up banks left and right. He kind of becomes friends with them and then it becomes difficult to distinguish between his real life as a cop and life with the surfer gang. Well, Stone Cold is basically that same movie. Just switch surfer gang for biker gang and replace Keanu with The Boz. This movie also made me think of Hunter S. Thompson’s book “Hell’s Angels” where Hunter S. Thompson actually lived amongst the Hells Angels for about a year, after which they kicked his ass for using them to write his book. But that doesn’t happen with The Boz on this movie. The Boz infiltrates the gang, and actually earns their respect from the get go because he starts off by kicking some ass, after he's had his egg-orange juice-banana energy shake of course!

So now comes the part of my review where I analyze the laugh inducing moments of this film, cause hey, this movie was made in the 90s, but its still got a little bit of left over 80s mentality within it; so laugh inducing moments are practically mandatory. Its an 80s action flick every step of the way. Heavy Metal was taking over back in the late 80s early 90s. This was way before Nirvana came along and screwed things up for hair bands everywhere. As a result, this films soundtrack is very heavy metal, as well as its attitude, the guys on this movie all listen to metal, they all wear skulls, rings, leather jackets. There’s only one problem, amongst all these dirty, unshaven, smelly heavy metal loving biker dudes, one person stands out like a sore thumb, and who is it? The Boz! Brian Bosworth who calls himself John Stone in the film, does not look like a biker at all. Number one, he actually wears neon colors while riding a bike. There’s this one scene where he’s wearing this neon green bandana on his head, and I’m like: Okay, its obvious, your NOT a fucking biker dude! Give it up! Another thing is: who the hell chose Bosworth’s wardrobe for this movie? Was it himself? Cause it sucks! He wears these gigantic leather jackets! They make him look like a Highlander on wheels or something! There’s no doubt about it, Bosworth was a fashion victim on this film. But hey, its great for a laugh. Don’t get me started on that mullet!

Then there is this scene in which The Boz appears in his underwear, that’s so obviously unnecessary, its like “look at me, I’m fucking hot! Bask in the awesomeness of my built body!” It was funny, and I was thinking, okay, this is a guy’s film because everything in the movie is aimed at guys, so why was that scene in there if this movie is made 100% for guys? I didn’t get it! I guess the director wanted to give something for the one or two ladies in the audience that were dragged by their boyfriends to see this action flick. I practically heard the girls screaming when that scene came on! Good thing is that the film quickly compensates by immediately placing a naked chick on the dudes bed. And speaking of nudity, there’s lots of it on this one. It has the obligatory “lets talk things out in a titty bar, with naked chicks on the background” scene. Hell, girls play pool topless on this film! So if you like some naked chicks with your action film, you’ll be more then pleased with Stone Cold.

So what else does this film have to offer other then nudity, action and The Boz? Well, Lance Henriksen playing the leader of the biker gang that’s what this film has to offer! And he plays it great. He wasn’t all that old just yet, actually, Lance Henriksen was ripped for this role! He runs the gang as if it was some sort of religion. He says “this is my cross, my church, my religion” and to top things off, when he wants to infiltrate a building, he dresses up like a preacher so they let him walk right by! He’s great in this movie. We also get William Forsythe, back in his early days. On this one he plays second fiddle to Lance Henriksen. The henchman who doesn’t trust The Boz. Not one bit! The rest of the cast is composed of real life bikers! Which adds a bit more credibility to the proceedings. Theres this one scene where all the bikers are shooting their guns, and watching these two guys kicking each others asses like some Gladiator show or something, good scene, everyone is crazy, going out of control, gotta give kudos to this movie for making these scenes genuine by using real bikers.

And then there’s the stunts! Bikes crashing out windows and exploding on helicopters! Chase sequences where bad guys smash their bikes onto oncoming traffic! When somebody is fighting in this movie and they hurl somebody, they really freaking throw them! I mean people fly! These biker dudes entertain themselves by shooting bear cans off of their shoulders! With machine guns! 

A fun action film! Its over the top, and crazy. Everybody is in “fuck you!” mode! Everything blows up, everybody runs on choppers, and The Boz kicks ass like he was The Terminator, which is really what they were trying to do here. Make Brian Bosworth the next Arnold or Stallone. Though in truth, he looked more like the next Dolph Lungdren, actually a great many scenes remind me of Dolph Lungdren. At times, The Boz actually talks like Lungdren! Anyhows, not a bad action film, actually a pretty cool one from the 90s! Right up there with Stallones Cobra. Good for a laugh, good for some fun.

Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5

This foreign poster for the film actually makes it look like a Terminator film!