The General's Daughter (1999) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski) and Tuna

Scratch that analysis. I just realized that if you wanted to write a Marlowe story today, it would HAVE to take place in the Army, so you could avoid all the political correctness of the civilian world. Travolta's investigator is as hard-boiled and cocky as they come, and he doesn't let anybody have an attorney or read them their rights or get any search warrants, and he doesn't need any stinkin' badges. (This is not a correct presentation of military justice, by the way).  Everybody he investigates outranks him and, as in a Chandler story, everyone lies with every syllable they utter, so Barbarino uses the traditional detective trick of beating the living shit out of them and/or threatening them with 40 years in the brig and a court martial for hindering an investigation. He slips the cuffs on the high command if they give him any lip, and no courts can tell him not to. 

He is the law, just like Stallone in Judge Dredd, except Travolta would have been better with Rob Schneider around than Madeleine Stowe.

In the original concept, which included the romance, there was a reason for the Stowe character to be in the script. Unfortunately, without the romantic sub-plot, that reason was eliminated. Travolta could have been investigating on his own, and the story would have flowed much better that way. But the movie was already shot, cut, and scored, when the director decided to shit-can the romance, so he was stuck with several scenes that included Stowe for no apparent purpose, and some dialogue between Stowe and Travolta in the retained scenes that hinted at material only shown in the excised scenes. Without those deleted scenes to refer to, however, the dialogue made only oblique sense. Although Travolta and Stowe did some romantic bantering in the final cut, the resolution of the film gave us no indication of where all that led. It was just left hanging.

The movie originally ended with the two of them driving off together into the sunset, even though Travolta finds out that Stowe is not divorced at all, but has simply lied to him about her husband! And the driving off into the sunset goes on and on and on and on through a picturesque sunset over the Georgia swamps, turning the ending mood into that of a happy, fulfilled love story.

The nudity, however, is not anywhere near so dramatic as we were led to believe.  

The General's Daughter is a whodunit directed by Simon West.

A female Captain, daughter of a popular retiring General and Vice Presidential hopeful, is murdered. Her body is discovered naked and spread-eagled to tent stakes, and presumed to have been raped. John Travolta plays the CID investigator assigned to the case along with his ex-flame Madeleine Stowe, who plays a rape counselor and sexual crimes investigator.

It is immediately obvious that the investigation has serious political overtones, and that the death wasn't what it first seemed. Before the investigation reaches its conclusion, the film is littered with skeletons falling out of the closet, and it is a none-too-subtle indictment of the good old boy network of career military men. The fact that Travolta is a Warrant officer, rather than a college graduate officer like those he is investigating, is important to the dynamic of the investigation. He has little respect for the snooty college wiz kids, and seems to enjoy the unlimited power his investigatory authority gives him. It's safe to say that your enjoyment of the film will have a lot to do with how much you appreciate Travolta's cocky, bullying performance.

The Army did not cooperate with the filming of this controversial story, which meant that all of the military vehicles and costumed extras had to be paid for, so the $60M budget was stretched to the limit, but you would never know of these problems when watching the film, which looks completely realistic. In fact, it is a pretty fair whodunit in "general", with lots of twists and turns, some in-depth character development, more than a little humor (mainly from Travolta's character) and some serious themes having to do with military secrecy and the treatment of women in the armed services. I enjoyed this very much.