Sadly Over-hyped

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Captivating movie !

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

I'm coming at this as a fan of Kathleen Turner, the V.I. Warshawski series and of my home city of Chicago. This movie simply blew it.The casting, at least, was perfect. Turner is perfectly cast as V.I. The voice, the look, the attitude, everything. She perfectly captures the character. Even the rest of the casting is good. Jay O. Sanders perfectly fits Murray (A red-headed Elliot Gould according the books) and Dennehy is Bobby Mallory.The problem is script and direction. They took bits and pieces from at least four different books and threw them together, badly. They watered down V.I. (tho Turner did a hell of a job of working through it). The movie loses its way at the end. It's just a mess. The directing was half-hearted. And they never got much of the character of Chicago, which is a major part of V.I. herself.This could have been a great movie. V.I. is one of the great unsung female characters in mystery fiction. Chicago is one of the great cities of the world. And the stories in the series are full and complex. And this movie wasn't any of it.It's good for the hardcore Kathleen Turner fans. She is the best part of this movie and manages to get the character to show through the bad dialog. But this movie could have been so much more. Hopefully a good adaption could be done at some point.

For the time this movie was released, it really is a solid film. One I stop and watch anytime I catch it on cable. I like Kathleen Turner as Vic and see her as Vic when I read Paretsky's Blacklist (2004) and Indemity Only (1982). Paretsky is such a skilled writer that I read all 332 pages of Indemity Only completely in one Saturday. This would have been a good vehicle/series for Ms. Turner if the movie had followed the novels closer. They should have hired Paretsky to write the screen play.The screenwriters, Edward Taylor, David Aaron Cohen, & Nick Thiel, I believe are responsible for this film being unsuccessful at the box office. It appears they did not read the books or believe themselves that a women could be a private investigator. Paretsky gave them a well rounded, gritty, thorough character. The screenwriters tried to make it a comedy/action film and dishonored Paretsky in their representation of her character. The screen play should have been written as an action/thriller along the lines of Patriot Games (1992), an action/crime like the Italian Job (2003), or a mystery along the lines of the Thomas Crown affair (1999). All have comedic moments in them and would be better genres for the V.I. Warshawki novels.Maybe if Ms. Turner is up to it she could revive the character or perhaps Charlize Theron would take a shot at it.

I have never read the books, but I LOVED THIS MOVIE. Kathleen Turner was PERFECT in this role!! i disagree with others who say she was miscast--WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!! They couldn't have picked a better actress for this detective. I saw this film when it was in theaters, and loved it then. I got the chance to see it again on Encore today, and it has lost none of it's punch or humor, not to mention action. I just wish it was half-an-hour longer!! I thought Everyone was wonderful in the film, especially the little girl. And I adored the music! I wish they had made more films from the other books. i WOULDN'T MIND OWNING THIS ONE! tHIS IS A REAL GEM.

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.