Thursday, November 7, 2013

‘Go for Sisters,’ movie review

If “Go for Sisters” were the work of a lesser filmmaker, it would feel like the pilot for a soon-to-be-forgotten TV series. But because the movie comes to us from John Sayles, the mechanical plotting fades into the background as the personal connections become increasingly compelling.


LisaGay Hamilton plays Bernice, a stern parole officer who never seems comfortable in her own skin. She certainly has reasons to be tense. Her husband is dead and her troubled son has disappeared, apparently kidnapped by Mexican drug dealers.


Fontayne (Yolanda Ross) is Bernice’s opposite, outgoing and street-savvy. She was recently released from prison on drug charges. The two women were best friends in high school, but have barely spoken since.


That’s about to change. To rescue her son, Bernice needs Fontayne’s help — along with some assistance from a disgraced former cop (Edward James Olmos) — in navigating the Tijuana underworld.


The action never fully gels and, as a writer, Sayles doesn’t seem much more comfortable than Bernice in his multicultural milieu. But he makes an earnest effort to understand both sides of the border, as well as the complex friendships between women with similar backgrounds but divergent goals.


He also gives his actors enough room to revel in, and they respond by stretching out across the film’s evocative landscape in ways that are both surprising and satisfying. Olmos is wonderfully relaxed and Hamilton effectively conveys Bernice’s eternal unease. It’s Ross, however, who really makes a lasting impact. Someone should snap her up for a series — and soon.


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