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A Reel Life film section

Autumn 2004


V. I. Warshawski (1991) movie review

Woman with a Cause and Attitude

Sara Paretsky's ground-breaking private investigator comes to the screen with a kickass attitude, a mouth that is a bit out of control, a dollar retainer and a just cause.

V. I. Warshawski (Kathleen Turner) is a Chicago-based P.I. whose life and friends are reinvented in this bastardisation of a popular crime novel.

Local skating hero Boom Boom catches Vic's eye in her local bar before he breaks into a fight with his brothers. He turns up on her doorstep with his young daughter Kat (Angela Goethals) in tow and asks what it will take to hire her.

Money, and a just cause.

Movie poster, V. I. Warshawski; Festivale film reivew

Movie poster, V. I. Warshawski; Festivale film review

Within hours Vic finds herself in the midst of a murder investigation (Boom boom's), with a precocious child for a client and bad guys and angry unionists and a cop who remembers diapering her.

It might be time for a gun, and maybe a little coverup makeup.

This isn't the character and world of the books, but then until recently all Vic's stories have been instigated by members of her family, not through her work, so having this as a job is better. The film needs to be taken on it's own merit, and it's a pretty good crime story with a wonderful theme over the opening credits.

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by Ali Kayn
Released 1991
For credits and official site details, see below
Search Festivale for more work by the film-makers below.

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Just the facts:

Title: V. I. Warshawski (1991) (1991)
Written by: Sara Paretsky ('V.I. Warshawski' novels) Edward Taylor (screen story)
Directed by: Jeff Kanew
Original Music by: Randy Edelman
running time: 89 mins
rating: M

The Players: Kathleen Turner, Jay O. Sanders, Charles Durning, Angela Goethals, Nancy Paul, Stephen Root

Official website:
IMDb entry

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