Dick Tracy 2: 18 Possible Plots
Dig out the prosthetics, it’s sequel time
Dick Tracy: The Kid
The Villain: Stooge Viller, a renowned pickpocket, ex-prisoner and schemer who enjoys hijacking vehicles.
The Possible Plot: Now a grown man, Dick Tracy Jr (formerly The Kid) still helps his adopted father out during some of the tougher cases.
Then he gets an anonymous call telling him to get down to a nearby silver mine – there, Jr’s biological father Hank Steele is murdered by Stooge Viller. Tracy Jr sets out on a quest to bring Viller down, while also learning about his own roots.
Actor Hidden Under Prosthetics: Paul Giamatti
Dick Tracy: Angel Delight
The Villain: Angeltop Jones, Flattop’s daughter. Her gorgeous locks of golden hair wrapped around her head hide the hereditary squashed noggin.
The Possible Plot: As Tracy’s marriage to Tess Truehart hits the rocks (she thinks it’s time he retired, he’s adamant he’s not ready for the boneyard yet), Angeltop Jones enters Tracy’s life.
Recognising that they have chemistry together, Tracy’s unaware that he’s falling for Flattop’s daughter until it’s too late.
Actor Hidden Under Prosthetics: Reese Witherspoon
Dick Tracy: Brace Face
The Villain: Braces, a bad guy with serious dental problems! Braces gets his name from the metal reconstructive appliances attached to his teeth.
The Possible Plot: Braces may look like an inept youngster, but he’s got grand schemes to match the rest of them.
Along with the help of his female accomplice and brutish robot, he’s on a mission to steal industrial secrets and make himself a fortune…
Actor Hidden Under Prosthetics: Ryan Gosling
Dick Tracy: Big Boy Strikes Back
The Villain: Big Boy, a thuggish crime boss who failed to kill Dick Tracy.
The Possible Plot: Though his plummet inside the drawbridge at the climax of Dick Tracy seemed to have silenced Big Boy forever, he’s been quietly recuperating for years, waiting for a moment to get his own back on Dick Tracy.
He falls in with Madam Parfum, and uses her fake perfumery shop as a front for his operations, then recruits Mr Bribery (who beheads his victims and shrinks their heads) to kill Tracy once and for all.
Actor Hidden Under Prosthetics: Al Pacino, reprising his role.
Dick Tracy: Prunes The Boss?
The Villain: Pruneface, a sadistic German who plots to bring America to its knees.
The Possible Plot: A dramatic opening scene has Pruneface fighting Dick Tracy’s father back in the day, only to be accidentally frozen by a cryogenic chamber during a shootout.
Years later, when Dick Tracy Jr is a grown man, Pruneface is finally unfrozen by Nazi compadre Dr Cyros Freezedrei. Together, the two plot to sell the secret of immortality to America by mass marketing a substance that will actually kill any unfortunate customers.
Actor Hidden Under Prosthetics: Viggo Mortensen
Dick Tracy: Flattop Jr
The Villain: Flattop Jones Jr, almost identical son to Flattop and a bit of a boy racer.
The Possible Plot: Dick Tracy Jr is now in high school, which is where he becomes classmates with Flattop Jones Jr.
A rivalry breaks out between them over their warring parents, especially because Flattop Jr now lives in his hot rod car – he has no home after the death of his father. If he can kill Tracy Jr, though, Flattop thinks he can avenge his father’s death.
Actor Hidden Under Prosthetics: James Franco
Dick Tracy: Mumblecorps
The Villain: Mumbles, a criminal guitar player who steals jewellery and murders on a whim.
The Possible Plot: With Big Boy gone, Mumbles has become the new crime lynchpin. He’s set up his own criminal empire, Mumble Corps, and funds his ventures by stealing and murdering with gleeful abandon.
He’s also decided it’s time to get rid of Dick Tracy, who's becoming a real nuisance…
Actor Hidden Under Prosthetics: Dustin Hoffman, reprising his role.
Dick Tracy: Capitol Punishment
The Villain: Al Kinda, a swindler with big ideas.
The Possible Plot: Kinda earns his keep by robbing and kidnapping. After that starts to get a bit boring, he embarks on a crackpot scheme to blow up the US Capitol building, recruiting other gangsters to his cause. Can Dick Tracy and Tracy Jr stop him before it’s too late?
Actor Hidden Under Prosthetics: Tom Cruise
Dick Tracy: Keep On Truckin
The Villain: BB Eyes, who has strangely small eyes in a large face.
The Possible Plot: BB Eyes is a petty criminal who kidnaps and bootlegs tires. He’s also the leader of a gang of truck thieves who are making life miserable in the city.
When he kills Patrolman O’Malley during one of his busts, though, he goes a step too far, and gets Dick Tracy on his tail.
Actor Hidden Under Prosthetics: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Dick Tracy: Redrum
The Villain: Faceless Redrum, a gang leader.
The Possible Plot: Breathless Mahoney used his identity in the first Dick Tracy , but now the real Faceless Redum is in town, and he’s pissed that some lounge singer posed as him.
He kills everybody in his gang after they abandoned him, leaving a trail of bodies across the city that Tracy ends up investigating. Is there a pattern to the killings?
Actor Hidden Under Prosthetics: Jackie Earle Haley
Dick Tracy: Blowtop
The Villain: Flattop Jones’ brother, who possesses a spectacularly fiery temper.
The Possible Plot: Tracy and Tess Trueheart are married and have a baby. Unbeknownst to them, the villainous Blowtop’s been scheming to make their life a misery, and kidnaps their baby. When they refuse to pay him a ransom, he burns their home to the ground…
Actor Hidden Under Prosthetics: Christoph Waltz
Dick Tracy: Grey Matters
The Villain: Brain, who wears a hat that looks like a brain, and Broadway Bates, a renowned kidnapper.
The Possible Plot: A nutso gang leader, Brain is content in his bubble of petty crime and small-time looting, until the penguin-like Broadway Bates busts into his headquarters, escaping from Dick Tracy and co.
As the two combine forces, Bates masterminds a scheme to kidnap Tracy - and he’ll need Brain’s help to carry the whole thing off.
Actor Hidden Under Prosthetics: Rick Moranis as Brains, Anthony Hopkins as Broadway.
Dick Tracy: The Brow
The Villain: The Brow, who has no ears but makes up for it with his prominent forehead.
The Possible Plot: Dick Tracy is on The Brow's trail, the criminal being responsible for kidnapping the Summer Sisters, who have information on a bank he intends on robbing.
He tortures the sisters, but they refuse to tell him anything. When the sisters escape, The Brow kills them in the street - right in front of Tess Trueheart. Realising she's a witness, The Brow takes her in their place, spying an opportunity to put Tracy in a difficult situation.
Actor Hidden Under Prosthetics: John C Reilly
Dick Tracy: Street Smart
The Villain: Steve The Tramp, an opportunistic thug.
The Possible Plot: Steve The Tramp makes his money assaulting people and nicking their wallets. Eventually, Dick Tracy catches him and he’s thrown in jail.
Ten years later, Steve’s released and appears to be a changed man. He even opens his own fruit stall. But has he really seen the light? Or are a spate of new crimes his doing?
Actor Hidden Under Prosthetics: Jack Nicholson
Dick Tracy: Flattop Returns
The Villain: Flattop Jones, one of Big Boy’s henchmen, seemingly shot dead during Dick Tracy ’s climactic gun battle.
The Possible Plot: Flattop looked dead, didn’t he? Well, he wasn’t. After being treated for his injuries, he’s thrown in the clink for a life sentence.
But Flattop has connections, and works from behind bars to build a gangster army that has one goal and one goal only – rid the world of Dick Tracy and Dick Tracy Jr.
Actor Hidden Under Prosthetics: William Forsythe, reprising his role.
Dick Tracy: Supeenas Law
The Villain: Danny Supeena, a corrupt lawyer.
The Possible Plot: Dick Tracy Jr has been following the movements of Danny Supeena for a while, suspecting he’s not as clean as all that.
His suspicions are confirmed when he witnesses Supeena beating up one of his clients in order to get money out of an insurance company - but how can Tracy Jr prove he’s a bad egg?
Actor Hidden Under Prosthetics: Harrison Ford
Dick Tracy: We Are Family
The Villain: Flattop Jones’ family, all endowed with big bonces crammed with devilish criminal schemes.
The Possible Plot: With so many renowned gangsters dead or 'inside' thanks to Dick Tracy, the Flattop family members have become the world’s most influential crime mongers.
Together, they set about taking over all criminal activity, with a plot to blow up the police station – only then can criminal chaos reign supreme.
Actor Hidden Under Prosthetics: Anjelica Huston, William H Macy
Dick Tracy: The Player
The Villain: 88 Keyes, a piano player and the leader of a guns-for-hire murder gang.
The Possible Plot: It’s been years since 88 Keyes helped frame Dick Tracy for Big Boy, and 88 Keyes is now the leader of his own gang.
When a surge in murders across the city occurs, Tracy starts to investigate who’s responsible. As people from both sides of the law turn up dead, Tracy is led into a dark web of conspiracy and corruption.
Actor Hidden Under Prosthetics: Mandy Patinkin
Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.