V.I. Warshawski (1991)

Let's be realistic.

Fresh and Exciting

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Kathleen Turner plays a wise-cracking and sarcastic private detective whose new boyfriend, Boom-Boom, has been killed in a ship explosion. She ends up taking in his daughter, Kat, and together, they set out to find out who was behind Boom-Boom's murder.Turner is filled with hilarious one-liners and deadpan deliveries, giving the film plenty of humor. There are some good old fashion detective work that keeps the film going at a steady pace.The script was OK and the acting was pretty good, but what's lacking is some needed suspense, unpredictability and thrills. The action is also limited, but, the film overall is still pretty entertaining and fun.Grade B

Viewed this movie on 11/20/04, and it was so entertaining that it kept me up until two in the morning. My wife, who has markedly different tastes than I do, liked it enough to stay up with me. Imagine my surprise when I went to Maltin to look up a character, and found it classed as a BOMB. He panned it as wretchedly scripted, directed and photographed. To the contrary, I found the script to be easily followed, something that is getting more and more rare in this age of obscure scripts. If it was poorly directed, the actors are geniuses, becaust the scenes hung together well, were understandable and seemed completely natural, even though the story line was a bit picaresque. The photography was certainly adequate to tell the story without intruding on it.Maltin and I may have seen different movies, because his plot summary spoke of a murdered hockey player, and without betraying too much of the plot, there were plenty of murders but no hockey player in the movie I saw. The plot in the movie I saw was delightfully complex, with a number of twists and turns that would have done O'Henry proud. All in all, it was two hours well spent.

I didn't really like this film. Where was all the action? I mean it was supposed to be an action film with a little mystery behind it right? The mystery part was okay but after just a few minutes you knew who the bad guy was. After seeing the man from Sienfeld and 3rd Rock from the sun do some very funny characters, seeing him try to be the hard hitting gangster in this film was hard to believe. He did okay with the role it was just trying to see him as a bad man was not very easy. As for Kathlene Turner, she did the best with the role as she could. She is still a great actress but took on a bad role.This film is way on the bottom of my list. I wish it could have been so much better but OH WELL.

In the movie V.I. Warshawski, there is a small tugboat used which is a mystery to a lot of people on the Great Lakes. It was painted to look like a Great Lakes Towing Company tug (green hull, red cabins) and named after a state, just as GLT does. Her name was the MAINE. The movie tug (the fake GLT tug) is now stripped down, rusted out, and deteriorating down in Chicago on the Calumet River. She seems to be abandoned and nobody I've talked with knows her history.I'm very interested in maritime history and keep files on each tug on the Lakes. If anyone knows anything about this vessel, I would love to hear from you! Contact Franz