While not the debacle its belly flop at the US box office suggests, Warshawski is a film you start out wanting to like, that is so sloppily executed you can neither really enjoy nor forgive it.Sexy Kathleen Turner - looking, frankly, pretty terrific - plays with gusto a role that was tailor made for her in tough, wisecracking, man-eating Vic Warshawski, a Chicago 'tec well able to hold her own with hard guys and hoods even when she's clicking along in frivilous stilletoes. Unfortunately, the murder case she here finds herself embroiled in is so uninspired it would be lucky to get the 3 a.m. insomniacs' slot on television.
Vic takes a fancy to a former ice hockey player, but before scoring he gets bumped off. Saddled with his smartass pubescent daughter for an employer/sidekick, Vic then flounces around in an unsavoury assortment of suspects, ho-hum action pieces and the hugely boring conspiracy at the bottom of it all. The pity of it is that Turner is appealing and there are just enough sparky one-liners to suggest this could have been much more fun. Surrounded by definite second-raters, however, and indifferently directed, even her substantial shoulders cannot carry the full weight of this brassy picture.