- 1991movierewind
Episode #15: V.I. Warshawski
Updated: Jun 14, 2021
Listen to Episode 15 of the Podcast here while you enjoy the show notes.
SUMMARY - V.I. Warshawski is a private investigator who finds herself in the middle of a murder case when her new love interest winds up dead shortly after they meet. V.I. (played by Kathleen Turner) was watching his daughter at the time of the incident, but when other members of the family become suspects, she decides she needs to try to solve the case with her new teenage sidekick tagging along.
Screenplay by Edward Taylor, David Aaron Cohen, and Nick Thiel; Directed by Jeff Kanew, and released on July 26, 1991.
FILM DISCUSSION
We've discussed a lot of movies that take place in New York, but this is the first in Chicago and it liked to show off various landmarks. V.I. even lives directly across the street from Wrigley Field.
The movie is supposed to be a comedy, but it rarely accomplished that goal. There are several "zany" situations but almost all of the lines fall flat.
Our favorite line came from looked to be an extra who made some dumb sexual remark and then celebrated the fact that he said words.
That came after a boat chase. There is some action in here, but not a lot.
Ka-Blooey!
There's also some light detective work, but not much.
Mostly the movie focuses on building character relationships to establish a series of films that never came about. A lot of the supporting cast is solid.
Wayne Knight appears a mob boss type guy and it does not work in terms of casting or plot structure.
They do try to throw a tiny twist at you at the end, but mostly the mystery was secondary to the rest of the film.
Kathleen Turner felt like a great choice for the comedic action role given her past work, but was overshadowed by some of her castmates.
Awards Talk - At the Young Artist Awards, Angela Goethals was nominated for Best Young Actress Starring in a Motion Picture. Well deserved nomination as she was great in this.
TRUE CRIME & POP CULTURE
This week our "crime" segment focused on series of events that started on this day when Paul Reubens was arrested.
Also we were able to find the PSAs he created as part of his agreement.
The first one is age restricted on YouTube, which is odd since it was specifically geared towards telling little kids about the dangers of crack.
Here's Penny's PSA that has no problems at all.
We didn't really cover music or TV this time around as it was basically covering the same ground we've gone over before and the Pee-Wee discussion covers some of that.
By the way, the name of the cowboy show that replaced Pee-Wee's Playhouse that Jon was thinking about but couldn't name was "Riders in the Sky." https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101181/
RANKINGS & RATINGS
Nikki 1-5 star scale - 2 out of 5
Jon 0-4 star scale - 1 out of 4
Would you watch it again? - We wouldn't go out of our way to pick this version up. Even though this adaptation fell flat, we would be interested to watch any reboot if it ever happened.
If you want to watch V.I. Warshawski, as of this recording on May 2021, it’s available on Digital Rental, VHS, DVD. Check your local listings.
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