Friday 16 September 2011

Best Supporting Actor 1990: Al Pacino in Dick Tracy

Al Pacino received his sixth Oscar nomination for portraying Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy.

Dick Tracy depicts the hard boiled detectives attempts to take down crime.

Al Pacino's "Big Boy" is the main crime boss in town who quickly seizes power. There is only one way to describe Al Pacino's performance which is extreme over the topness. I am not usually a huge fan of over the topness in the wrong circumstance, but in this circumstance going over the top certianly fits the role of Big Boy. After all just look at Pacino here, to go for a subtle restrained performance would seem sort of odd when you look like Richard III combined with a raisin.

Pacino basically yells throughout his whole performance, as well as makes big gestures indicating his anger, and his want to GET TRACY!.  Other than that Pacino really does not do a whole lot, he just yells and hams it up. His overacting fits the part of Caprice, and he plays the villain just as the villain should have been played in a film like Dick Tracy.

Pacino's performance is enjoyable enough, and entertaining enough. He has some nice little humorous moments particularly near the end of the film where he starts freaking out. At the same time though I never found this performance really really enjoyable, entertaining or funny either. In fact I would probably say the performance I enjoyed more in this film was Dustin Hoffman's shorter work as Mumbles. In the end to me this is a fine performance, that fulfills the role but it never became an unforgettably entertaining one.

2 comments:

mrripley said...

I just don't get this nomination.

Tom said...

I never realized his first name was "Alphonse"