V.I. Warshawski, un privé en escarpins

It is remarkable to me how much affection and revulsion this watchable, incomplete misfire of a film can inspire, here among the Comments and elsewhere; I haven't seen more than a few minutes of it for several years, but did see it in a theater in its original run. Kathleen Turner as VIW is too much a flirt to conform to Sara Paretsky's portrait of her detective, but otherwise gives a decent performance that, better than the script, gets across Warshawski's toughness, wit and unwillingness to suffer fools any more than she has to. The film, as someone else noted, would've done well to be a more faithful adaptation of one of the early novels, rather than pulling bits from several and then letting the plot go completely slack by the last third. But there are nice touches, here and there; Wayne Knight was born to play the petty thug and childhood schoolmate of Warshawski. But the hastiness and corner-cutting of the production is unfortunately evident. One wonders if a second film, with a better script and crew, might've been quite good.

V.I. Warshawski is my all-time favorite movie, and I don't know why people keep butchering it so bad. It's an intriguing mystery that pulls you in and doesn't let you go until the end.

Kathleen Turner shines as detective Victoria Warshawksi whom is hired by the 13 year old girl, Kat, she is babysitting to find out who murdered her father. With suspects at every corner, Vic doesn't know who to trust and who not to. Kat joins forces with Vic in a more helpful approach to the situation, getting information that Vic can't obtain herself eliminating suspects and narrowing it down to one. The ending will blow your mind, as it isn't expected.

Filmed on Chicago's waterfront, V.I. Warshawski delivers the goods for intrigue, mystery, and top notch action! If you haven't seen it, give it a chance. It's worth the 1.99 rental price - don't listen to anyone who says this movie unbearable to watch because it's an outstanding film and one of Kathleen Turner's best.

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.

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.