I don't read many mysteries as a rule, but Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski novels are an exception. A sort of feminist Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade, Warshawski (the initials stand for Victoria Iphigenia) works the Chicago beat, in the business of tracking financial crime, but often dealing with thugs ranging from crooked senators to mobsters. I don't know how those who have never read the novels will react to star Kathleen Turner (who plays Warshawski), director Jeff Kanew and writers David Aaron Cohen, Edward Taylor, and Nick Thiel's version, but Paretsky fans will not be happy, and nor am I.
The plot is sort of a patchwork of her first two novels, Indemnity Only (which involves befriending a 13-year old girl and being menaced by mobster Earl Smiessen) and Deadlock (which involves the murder of an ex-hockey player at the shipyard he works at). Here, the hockey player, Boom Boom Grafalk (Stephen Meadows), is V.I.'s current boyfriend, rather than her cousin, as in the novel. When he's killed in the shipyard accident, V.I. teams up with Kat (Angela Goethals), the 13 year old daughter of Boom Boom, to try and solve the killing, and runs into nasty business involving Boom Boom's relatives, who ran the shipyard. Smiessen (Wayne Knight) also has his hands involved, which is why V.I. gets beat up by him and his thugs.
The problem is, while the plot may be okay even as sketched together as it is, the rest of the movie is a house of cards that easily falls apart. Warshawski in the novels is tough and intelligent, as well as vulnerable. She does play feminine on occasion, but that's only playing and only on occasion. Kanew, however, has Turner do it as a manner of course (certainly, the V.I. of the novels would never through herself at a guy the way the V.I. of the movie throws herself at Boom Boom). And as for her intelligence, it seems to be summed up in trite sayings like "When it doubt, hesitate!" Turner does have toughness to spare, and tries to inject it whenever possible, but the movie betrays her by having her be saved all the time. And while there are tense and exciting scenes (like a boat chase), they shouldn't be the point.
