Bonita e Perigosa

In the 1980's Kathleen Turner was a tremendous star. Several of her films were huge box-office hits:"Romancing the Stone"(1984), "Jewel of the Nile"(1986), "Peggy Sue Got Married"(Best Actress Oscar nomination,1986), and "The War of the Roses"(1989). Critics loved her in John Huston's "Prizzi's Honor"(1985) and "The Accidental Tourist"(1987). Her sexy voice helped make "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"(1988) an enormous blockbuster. And who can forget her star-making performance that made her quite the sex-symbol in "Body Heat"(1981). When "V.I. Warshawski" came out Turner was still at her peak. The huge success of "War of the Roses" made her the #1 female star at US BoxOffices in early 1990. But "V.I." opened to disastrous reviews. She is actually very good in it but the script is so mediocre and the direction is so flat. She is given nothing to work with but her vibrant personality and sultry looks keep it together. The film ended up pulling in only 12 million in the US. This disaster immediately derailed Turner's career. Male stars like Bruce Willis and Nicolas Cage can star in one flop after another pulling in huge salaries but it does not matter as long as they get an occasional blockbuster. But take a huge Female star like Turner- give her one colossal dud and she is more or less finished in Hollywood. Turner's career never recovered. A few more mediocre duds followed then her looks went so now she is stuck in supporting roles that make it hard to believe she was once among the greatest of female stars. Maybe she can make a comeback as a star character actress. WHo knows.

"V.I. Warshawski" (Kathleen Turner) is a private detective who is hired by a former hockey player named "Bernard 'Boom Boom' Grafalk" (Stephen Meadows) to investigate some deals involving his two brothers. When her client is murdered she not only inherits the murder case but temporarily gets Bernard's 13 year-old daughter "Kat" (Angela Goethals) as well. Throw in a shady mob figure by the name of "Smeissen" (Wayne Knight), a fatherly cop "Lt. Mallory" (Charles Durning) and a two-timing newspaper journalist named "Murray" (Jay O. Sanders) and what develops is a good action movie with plenty of humor along the way. Now, while this movie certainly has some faults what I liked best about it was the performance of Kathleen Turner who I thought did quite well in spite of some weak dialogue and a couple of rather obvious and predictable scenes. She also had some great legs. In any case, I enjoyed the movie and I rate it as slightly above average.

Vicky V.I. Warshawski (Kathleen Turner) is a brassy private investigator in Chicago. She meets ex-hockey player Boom-Boom Grafalk at a bar. She is surprised when he brings his daughter Kat (Angela Goethals) to babysit. Next he's killed in a suspicious accident. V.I. promises Kat to solve her father's death. With the help of reporter Murray (Jay O. Sanders), they investigate the death and the sale of the family dockside property and business.

I like Kathleen Turner as this character. She fits the character quite well and her relationship with little tough-talking Kat is endearing. It's too bad that this is such a badly made movie. The action is done poorly. Director Jeff Kanew does a poor job overall.

I have just seen Kathleen Turnjer in "V.I. Warshawski" for the third time and, for the third time, am at a total loss to understand the panning/overall rating of 4.3 awarded to it by previous reviewers. I think the movie DOES reflect a lot of the Paretsky original novels and think Turner does a good job in portraying "the dick from the dock" in a manner which combines both respect for the literary character and the kind of gritty, down-to-earth film noir genre which the film obviously pays its debts to. This latter aspect is particularly apparent in the DIALOGUE, much of which my wife and I found hysterical and easily on a par with such remakes of Chandler as the "Farewell, My Lovely" version of the 1970s with Robert Mitchum and Charlotte Rampling. Like the letter, "V.I." is not going to be rated as "The Maltese Falcon" or "The Big Sleep" of the 1990s, but I still think it is a sound, entertaining and engaging piece of work, which does not deserve the reviews mentioned above. Now that we are past the "Blow 'em up / SFX-dominated" fayre of "Die Hard 27"or whatever, is it time for a follow-up to what was, in my view, sadly, Turner's sole donning of the red glitter shoes of V.I. with another actress in the role?

I honestly don't understand the low rating. I totally enjoyed this movie. Kathleen Turner and Jay O. Sanders were especially great in this. It has a good story and a decent amount of action scenes. I'd suggest people ignore the low rating and give it a shot for themselves.