''V.I. Warshawski'' is a 1991 American

action comedy The action comedy is a film genre that applies to action films where humor plays a much more central role. While early films feature stuntwork and humor, academic Cynthia King wrote that the genre only came into its own as a mainstay of the America ...

film directed by

Jeff Kanew Jeffrey Roger Kanew (born December 16, 1944) is an American film director, screenwriter, film producer and film editor who early in his career made trailers for many films of the 1970s and is probably best known for directing the film '' Reven ...

and starring

Kathleen Turner Mary Kathleen Turner (born June 19, 1954) is an American actress. Known for her distinctive deep husky voice, she is the recipient of two Golden Globes, as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a Grammy, and two Tony Awards. After debuting ...

, Jay O. Sanders,

Charles Durning Charles Edward Durning (February 28, 1923 – December 24, 2012) was an American actor who appeared in over 200 movies, television shows and plays.Schudel, Matt (December 26, 2012) "''In real life and on the screen, he played countless role ...

, Lynnie Godfrey,

Anne Pitoniak Anne Pitoniak (March 30, 1922 – April 22, 2007) was an American actress. She was nominated twice for Broadway's Tony Award as Best Actress (Play) in 1983 for '' 'night, Mother'' and as Best Actress (Featured Role – Play) in 1994 for a reviva ...

, Geof Prysirr,

Angela Goethals Angela Bethany Goethals ( ; born May 20, 1977) is an American film, television and stage actress. Goethals made her acting debut as a child actor in the 1987 Broadway production of '' Coastal Disturbances'', and was 14-years-old when she won th ...

, Stephen Meadows,

Frederick Coffin Frederick D. Coffin (January 16, 1943 – July 31, 2003) was an American film actor, singer, songwriter, and musician. Early life Coffin was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1943 to actress Winifred Deforest Coffin and writer Dean Coffin, and was one ...

Stephen Root Stephen Root (born November 17, 1951) is an American actor. He has starred as Jimmy James on the NBC sitcom ''NewsRadio'' (1995–1999), as Milton Waddams in the film ''Office Space'' (1999), and voiced Bill Dauterive and Buck Strickland on the a ...

and

Wayne Knight Wayne Elliot Knight (born August 7, 1955) is an American actor. In television, he played recurring roles such as Newman on the NBC sitcom ''Seinfeld'' (1992–1998) and Officer Don Orville on the NBC sitcom ''3rd Rock from the Sun'' (1996� ...

Plot

Victoria Iphigenia "V.I" Warshawski (

) is a

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

-based,

freelance ''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance w ...

private investigator A private investigator (often abbreviated to PI; also known as a private detective, an inquiry agent or informally a wikt:private eye, private eye) is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. ...

who lives the part of the hard-boiled detective, but below the surface, she is a softy. One night, while she is drinking at her favorite bar, she meets an ex- Blackhawks hockey player named "Boom-Boom" Grafalk ( Stephen Meadows). The two connect and a romance appears to be in the making, but Warshawski is surprised when "Boom-Boom" appears at her doorstep later that night with his 13-year-old daughter Kat (

) in tow. He asks Warshawski if she could watch her, and Warshawski agrees. Later that night, "Boom-Boom" is killed in a boat explosion, and Kat hires Warshawski to track down her father's killer. In doing so, she befriends the victim's daughter; together they set out to crack the case.

Cast

as Victoria Iphigenia "V.I." Warshawski * Jay O. Sanders as Murray Ryerson *

as Katherine "Kat" Grafalk *

as Lieutenant Bobby Mallory *

as Horton Grafalk *

Charles McCaughan Charles McCaughan is an American actor and director. Filmography Director and writer *''Angel on Fire'' (2005) *''Picture of Priority'' (1998) Acting *''The Cisco Kid'' (1994, TV) - Haynie *'' V.I. Warshawski'' (1991) - Trumble Grafalk *''Legal ...

as Trumble Grafalk * Stephen Meadows as Bernard "Boom-Boom" Grafalk * Nancy Paul as Paige Wilson-Grafalk *

as Earl "Bonehead" Smeissen * Lynnie Godfrey as Sal Barthele *

as Dr. Charlotte "Lotty" Herschel *

as Mickey *

Robert Clotworthy Robert Clotworthy is an American voice actor and narrator. He is best known as the narrator for the History Channel series '' Ancient Aliens'' and '' The Curse of Oak Island'' and his role as the voice of Jim Raynor in the '' StarCraft'' video ...

as Philip Pugh * Tom Allard as Eddie "Big Eddie" *

Mike Hagerty Michael Gerard Hagerty (May 10, 1954 – May 5, 2022) was an American actor. He was known for playing comedic blue-collar workers, including his recurring roles as Mr. Treeger, the building superintendent, on ''Friends'' and the manager of a m ...

as "Babe" *

Lee Arenberg Lee Arenberg (born July 18, 1962) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Pintel, one of Captain Barbossa's crew, in the ''Pirates of the Caribbean'' franchise. He also had a recurring role as the dwarf Grumpy in the television ...

as "Flesh" * John Beasley as Ernie * Everett Smith as McGraw * Herb Muller as Contreras * Geof Prysirr as Ron Whartley * Gene Hartline as Thug #1 *

Gary Epper Gary Alan Epper (December 31, 1944 – December 1, 2007) was an American stunt performer, coordinator and occasional actor. Part of a major stunt family dynasty in Hollywood, he was the son of John Epper, the brother of fellow Star Trek stuntme ...

as Thug #2 *

John Fujioka John Mamoru Fujioka (June 29, 1925 – December 13, 2018)"John 'Mamo' Mam ...

as Sumitora

Production

Writing

The film was based on a series of books by

Sara Paretsky Sara Paretsky (born June 8, 1947) is an American author of detective fiction, best known for her novels focused on the protagonist V. I. Warshawski. Life and career Paretsky was born in Ames, Iowa. Her father was a microbiologist and moved the ...

. Screenwriters Edward Taylor, David Aaron Cohen, and Nick Thiel adapted only one of Sara Paretsky's novels, ''

Deadlock Deadlock commonly refers to: * Deadlock (computer science), a situation where two processes are each waiting for the other to finish * Deadlock (locksmithing) or deadbolt, a physical door locking mechanism * Political deadlock or gridlock, a si ...

'', for the script for this movie, which took at least one liberty with the story. Whereas Paretsky had written the novel as a serious mystery, the screenwriters took an almost comedic approach. Paretsky was especially angry over the original script that had the independent female detective subordinate to a male counterpart for fear that a female character could not hold the lead role. The film's plot is very different from that of ''Deadlock''. In the book the ex-Blackhawks player Boom-Boom was the protagonist detective's cousin and lifelong companion, rather than a chance-met stranger; he had no daughter; and "Grafalk" was the family name of another character altogether, a devious shipping magnate who had a major role in the book but was dropped from the film.

Casting

Initially, the producers wanted to set the film in Baltimore and cast either

Amy Madigan Amy Marie Madigan (born September 11, 1950) is an American actress. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1985 film ''Twice in a Lifetime (film), Twice in a Lifetime''. Her other film credits include ''Love ...

Bette Midler Bette Midler ( ;''Inside the Actors Studio'', 2004 born December 1, 1945) is an American actress, comedian, singer, and author. Throughout her five-decade career Midler has received List of awards and nominations received by Bette Midler, numero ...

Jane Fonda Jane Seymour Fonda (born December 21, 1937) is an American actress and activist. Recognized as a film icon, Jane Fonda filmography, Fonda's work spans several genres and over six decades of film and television. She is the recipient of List of a ...

as Warshawski. Kathleen Turner reprised her character V.I. Warshawski in a series of radio plays on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

, the radio version of ''Deadlock'' itself being broadcast in 1993.

Filming

Principal production began in Chicago in November 1990. Scenes were filmed at

Wrigley Field Wrigley Field is a ballpark on the North Side, Chicago, North Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is the home ballpark of Major League Baseball's Chicago Cubs, one of the city's two MLB franchises. It first opened in 1914 as Weeghman Park for Charl ...

, Chicago;

Green Mill Cocktail Lounge The Green Mill Cocktail Lounge (also known as the Green Mill Jazz Club or simply the Green Mill) is a bar and entertainment venue on Broadway in Uptown, Chicago. The Green Mill's origins can be traced to the late 1890s. Over the years its nam ...

- 4802 N. Broadway Avenue, Chicago, (used as the Golden Glow Cocktail Lounge); San Pedro, California, Long Beach, California; Fire Station 23 - 225 E. 5th Street, Los Angeles, and Warner Bros Studios. Completed shooting February 27, 1991.

Reception

Janet Maslin of ''The New York Times'' had mixed thoughts about the film but commended the acting: "It's too bad that ''V.I. Warshawski'' is itself a lot less glamorous than Ms. Turner's performance, since the character could easily be the centerpiece of a more appealing film...''V.I. Warshawski'' has a breezy style and a serviceable, even surprising detective plot. And it has Ms. Turner, who makes the most of V.I. Warshawski's sardonic humor."

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...

of ''

The Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily Non-profit journalism, nonprofit newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has long held the second largest circulation am ...

'' gave the film 3 out of 4 stars and praised Turner's performance: "Kathleen Turner fits the character more closely than I would have imagined. Her laugh seems aged by whiskey, her smile is brave in the face of trouble, she kisses guys as if she'll never see them again, and she's usually right." The movie debuted poorly at the box office. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, it holds a rating of 24% based on 29 reviews. The consensus summarizes: "With ''V.I. Warshawski'', Kathleen Turner proves more than up to the task of leading a cop thriller -- it's the script that sadly isn't up to snuff."

Home media

The film was released on VHS on November 13, 1991; it was released on Laserdisc (4:3 ratio) the following year and on DVD on June 4, 2002 (in a 1.85:1 ratio). It was released on Blu-ray in May 2011.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:V.I. Warshawski (Film) 1991 films Films based on American novels Films set in Chicago Films shot in Chicago Films shot in Los Angeles Hollywood Pictures films 1990s mystery films 1991 action comedy films 1991 crime comedy films American detective films Films directed by Jeff Kanew American mystery films Films scored by Randy Edelman 1990s English-language films 1990s American films English-language crime films English-language action comedy films English-language mystery films American crime comedy films