For prolific filmmaker and author John Sayles (“Amigo”), “Go For Sisters” is particularly estranged from his previous films filled with vivid characters, engaging themes and sweeping storylines.
“Go For Sisters” begins as Fontayne (Yolanda Ross, “Whatever Works”), a woman on parole and with drug offenses, steps into the office of her parole officer Bernice (Lisa Gay Hamilton, “Lovelace”). Once young friends, they now find themselves on the opposite sides of the law. The opening scene is particularly evocative, establishing both the frayed relations between the two women and the subtle contempt they hold for each other.
Bernice’s son is abducted in Mexico and his captors begin sending her son back in pieces. Eventually, these events amount into a conflation of seemingly unlikely circumstances and the addition of Freddy Suarez (Edward James Olmos, “Battlestar Galactica”), a retired and somewhat disgraced police officer who assists Bernice and Fontayne in their quest.
While Sayles’ film is admirably composed, “Go For Sisters” becomes churlishly dyspeptic. The team of Hamilton and Ross becomes the central draw of the film and the chemistry between the two (their effortless banter) is enjoyable and cheeky at times. But the plot, which involves all manners of geopolitical issues from human trafficking to international criminal gangs, does not quite pay off as Sayles might intend. The march of genres that continually skip into the film simply becomes rushed and uncoordinated.
However, as turgid as portions of the film may be, when “Go for Sisters” arrives gingerly to the conclusion we’re left with an uneasy posture that alls well ends well. The unfailingly buddy-crime template “Go For Sisters” adopts only works for so long. In a film with a production as measured as “Go For Sisters,” the film travels light, but feels as if it could have added a bit more to the wandering experience.
