Boasting astonishing visual pizzazz - courtesy of production designer Richard Sylbert and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro - every scene offers optical overload as Beatty's yellow-clad crimefighter walks through astonishingly realised gangster locales to battle mob boss Al Pacino. Virtually every frame looks like it came straight from a comic book, with Beatty's noble hero facing a Who's Who of villains.
Sure, the plotting is no great shakes, but there's enough to keep you going between showdowns with some of Hollywood's finest, and some pretty decent torch songs by Madonna's Jessica Rabbit-like Breathless Mahoney.