V. I. WARSHAWSKI
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: A female Mike Hammer solves a very
unoriginal and unsurprising mystery. There are a few laughs
in the script, but Jeff Kanew never manages to get this film
going or even make the audience curious who the killer is.
Imagine, if you will, a hard-boiled detective. You know the kind: wise-cracking, knows all the angles, good in a fight, heavy drinking, and hard as nails. Our private eye may be a slob, but in a tight spot nobody thinks faster. Nothing exciting, right? So far I could be describing hundreds of different characters from Sam Spade to Mike Hammer to Mannix to Peter Gunn. But ... but suppose this private eye is different. Suppose on top of everything else our shamus is a sexy woman. Boy, what an original idea for a character, huh? Aren't you utterly intrigued? If you answered this question "yes," fine. You're welcome to V. I. WARSHAWSKI, a pedestrian made-for-television-grade mystery that was instead made for a theatrical release. It would not at all surprise me to see this turned into an equally pedestrian television series that will last one season and die.
The film opens with a helicopter view of a bit city (Chicago) under the credits and that is just about how original the plot gets. V. I. Warshawski (played by Kathleen Turner) is on the outs with her reporter boyfriend when she meets and is attracted to a famous hockey star. Next thing she knows, the hockey player has left his daughter on V. I.'s doorstep while he goes out for an evening on family business. By the end of the evening he is dead, and Warshawski has a pesky young teenager on her hands as well as a murder to solve.
The V. I. Warshawski novels of Sara Paretsky form the basis of this story by Edward Taylor and adapted to the screen by Taylor, David Aaron Cohen, and Nick Thiel. The screenplay is occasionally witty, milking the novelty of a sexy woman with very masculine traits for all the humor it can get from it. Even more comes from Warshawski's low opinion of the opposite sex. And when they are tired of that they play with the novelty of her name. Nobody, they suggest, can pronounce a three-syllable name. Then they play the T. S. Garp initial game ("What does the V. I. stand for?" "Very Inquisitive"). The story and the action are strictly television level. Had there been a series of films about this character, this might have made an acceptable fifth film in the series. But if this is the first film there is not likely to be a second one. I rate V. I. WARSHAWSKI a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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