Bonita e Perigosa

"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.

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.

I'm coming at this as a fan of Kathleen Turner, the V.I. Warshawski series and of my home city of Chicago. This movie simply blew it.

The casting, at least, was perfect. Turner is perfectly cast as V.I. The voice, the look, the attitude, everything. She perfectly captures the character. Even the rest of the casting is good. Jay O. Sanders perfectly fits Murray (A red-headed Elliot Gould according the books) and Dennehy is Bobby Mallory.

The problem is script and direction. They took bits and pieces from at least four different books and threw them together, badly. They watered down V.I. (tho Turner did a hell of a job of working through it). The movie loses its way at the end. It's just a mess. The directing was half-hearted. And they never got much of the character of Chicago, which is a major part of V.I. herself.

This could have been a great movie. V.I. is one of the great unsung female characters in mystery fiction. Chicago is one of the great cities of the world. And the stories in the series are full and complex. And this movie wasn't any of it.

It's good for the hardcore Kathleen Turner fans. She is the best part of this movie and manages to get the character to show through the bad dialog. But this movie could have been so much more. Hopefully a good adaption could be done at some point.

For the time this movie was released, it really is a solid film. One I stop and watch anytime I catch it on cable. I like Kathleen Turner as Vic and see her as Vic when I read Paretsky's Blacklist (2004) and Indemity Only (1982). Paretsky is such a skilled writer that I read all 332 pages of Indemity Only completely in one Saturday. This would have been a good vehicle/series for Ms. Turner if the movie had followed the novels closer. They should have hired Paretsky to write the screen play.

The screenwriters, Edward Taylor, David Aaron Cohen, & Nick Thiel, I believe are responsible for this film being unsuccessful at the box office. It appears they did not read the books or believe themselves that a women could be a private investigator. Paretsky gave them a well rounded, gritty, thorough character. The screenwriters tried to make it a comedy/action film and dishonored Paretsky in their representation of her character. The screen play should have been written as an action/thriller along the lines of Patriot Games (1992), an action/crime like the Italian Job (2003), or a mystery along the lines of the Thomas Crown affair (1999). All have comedic moments in them and would be better genres for the V.I. Warshawki novels.

Maybe if Ms. Turner is up to it she could revive the character or perhaps Charlize Theron would take a shot at it.

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.