Main Cast: Kathleen Turner, Jay O. Sanders, Charles Durning, Angela Goethals, Nancy Paul
Release Year: 1991
Country: US
Run Time: 89 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Kathleen Turner stars as V.I. Warshawski in Jeff Kanew's film version of the hard-boiled detective character from Sara Paretsky's series of crime novels. Warshawski is a freelance private investigator in Chicago, who lives the part of the hard-boiled detective. But in her heart of hearts, she is a softy. One night, while she is drinking at her favorite bar, she meets an ex-Blackhawks hockey player named Boom-Boom Grafalk (Stephen Meadows). The two connect and a romance appears to be in the making. But Warshawski is nevertheless surprised when Boom-Boom appears at her doorstep later that night with his 13-year-old daughter, Kat (Angela Goethals) in tow. He asks Warshawski if she could watch her and Warshawski agrees. Later that night, Boom-Boom is killed in a boat explosion and Kit hires Warshawski to track down her father's killer. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
Review
Rarely has a flop extinguished a career so quickly as V.I. Warshawski did to Kathleen Turner. Turner came in boasting a truly enviable résumé of 1980s hits, only to see this would-be franchise character knock her name permanently off the top of movie posters. V.I. Warshawski has developed kind of a cult familiarity for being famously misguided, but the truth is, it's more boring than anything else. Turner's tongue-in-cheek appeal from the Romancing the Stone saga is nowhere to be seen. The few attempts at humor totally sputter, leaving the movie feeling like a sluggish detective story with only superficial grit or direction. A different actress might have pulled this off, or pulled it off better. But Turner's sunny charm, key to her previous success, is totally suppressed by the bad lighting and grimy urban setting. What passes for a running joke is that everyone says her last name differently, despite its relatively straightforward phonetic pronunciation. Inadvertently, this ends up being a metaphor for how unknowable she is. If they intended this as a series, screenwriter David Aaron Cohen should have given some consideration to the character's origins as a private eye, but there's only a cursory mention of her once having been a lousy housewife. The only other depth V.I. has is a maternal instinct for the girl who just lost her father, and without a back story, it feels like an empty gesture. Child actor Angela Goethals has the most life of anyone on screen, while the ragtag bunch of character actors who fill out the cast range from hammy to just plain ridiculous. We eventually learn that the V stands for "Victoria." Maybe they were waiting for the sequel to reveal the I, but "Insipid" seems like a pretty good guess. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
Frederick Coffin - Horton Grafalk; Charles McCaughan - Trumble; Stephen Meadows - Boom-Boom; Wayne Knight - Smeissen; Lynnie Godfrey - Sal; Anne Pitoniak - Lotty; Stephen Root - Mickey; Robert Clotworthy - Phillip Pugh; Tom Allard - Big Eddie; Michael Hagerty - Babe; Lee Arenberg - Flesh; Gregg Almquist - Bank Manager; Mike Bacarella - Cabbie; John Beasley - Ernie; Theresa Bell - Stacy; Sandra Foster - Bank Teller; John Fujioka - Suwtora; Gene Hartline - Thug #1; Victor Herold - Bassist; Roger T. Ito - 1st Bodyguard; Shirley Johnson - Singer; Casey Jones - Drummer; Doris LeGras - Maid; Professor Eddie Lusk - Keyboardist; Herb Muller - Contreras; Geof Prysirr - Ron Whortley; Aaron Seville - Paramedic; Everett Smith - McGraw; Maurice Vaughn - Guitarist; Robert Wong - 2nd Bodyguard; Gary Epper - Thug #2; John P. Marsh - Striker
Credit
Larry Fulton - Art Director, Glenn Daniels - Casting, Doug Claybourne - Co-producer, John Bard Manulis - Co-producer, Lauren C. Weissman - Co-producer, Gloria Gresham - Costume Designer, Jeff Kanew - Director, Debra Neil - Editor, C. Timothy O'Meara - Editor, Penney Finkelman Cox - Executive Producer, Randy Edelman - Composer (Music Score), Pamela Westmore - Makeup, E. Thomas Case - Makeup, Barbara Ling - Production Designer, Jan Kiesser - Cinematographer, Jeffrey Lurie - Producer, John P. Marsh - Producer, Anne H. Ahrens - Set Designer, Lauren Polizzi - Set Designer, David Kelson - Sound Mixer, Chuck Picerni, Jr. - Stunts, David Aaron Cohen - Screenwriter, Edward Taylor - Screenwriter, Nick Thiel - Screenwriter, Sara Paretsky - Book Author, Robert "Bobby Z" Zajonc - Pilot
