V. I. Warshawski (1991)

My Review

Kathleen Turner is in top form in “V. I. Warshawski,” the story of a private detective in Chicago investigating the murder of a new-found boyfriend, hired by his 13-year-old daughter. Director Jeff Kanew (“Troop Beverly Hills” 1989) and screenwriters Edward Taylor, David Aaron Cohen, and Nick Thiel do a fair job of making an entertaining, though predictable and ordinary, film. It was adapted from a series of novels by Sara Paretsky.

The supporting cast behind Kathleen Turner includes Angela Goethals (a sister of Macauley Culkin in “Home Alone” 1990), Charles Durning, Jay O. Sanders, Nancy Paul, Stephen Meadows, Stephen Root, Frederick Coffin, John Fujioka, Lee Arenberg, Mike Haggerty, John Beasley, Charles McCaughan, and Wayne Knight, who would soon become famous as Newman on NBC’s “Seinfeld” (1992-1998).

“V. I. Warshawski” was reportedly intended to be a film franchise for Turner, but no sequels materialized because it was a flop at the box office for Hollywood Pictures, Silver Screen Partners IV, Chestnut Hill Productions, Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, and The Walt Disney Company. Kathleen Turner’s persona fits the role of Vicky Warshawski perfectly, but the mediocre script of this film has the feel of a television series pilot, and might have been greeted with more success had it been made into a television series. It was primarily filmed in Chicago, with a few scenes taken care of in Los Angeles.