John Sayles has been around in the independent film business for many years. During that time, he's garnered numerous accolades for his original stories and down to earth characters. Here, in his new film, 'Go for Sisters', he has the story and the characters but just doesn't know how to make it all work.
LisaGay Hamilton plays Bernice, a Los Angeles Parole Officer, who's assigned to Fontayne, a recovering drug addict, transferred from another officer who has just retired. The problem is that Bernice was a friend of Fontayne years ago in high school, until a rift over a boyfriend caused them to have a falling out.
When Bernice's estranged son, Rodney, is kidnapped in Mexico by human traffickers, Bernice desperately enlists Fontayne's help in trying to find Rodney. As a parole officer, she is prohibited from supervising Fontayne due to the conflict of interest but goes ahead anyway (at the beginning of the film she tells Fontayne she's planning to transfer her to a colleague, but comes up with this crazy, alternative plan to take the law into her own hands).
Even if one suspends one's disbelief that Bernice would risk her career (and possibly open up herself to criminal charges), the banter between the two is probably the best thing about the film. That's until the absurd plot kicks in. Bill Weber nails it when he writes in Slant Magazine: "after an initial tight focus on the characters' personal crises the plot wanders into a number of banal genre situations that neglect the movie's heart." And even Stephen Holden of the NY Times, finds that the parole officer and her charge have a "flimsy detective story draped over them", which "is underdeveloped and too sluggishly paced to take hold."
Bernice conscripts Freddy Suárez to help her, a former LAPD detective, who suffers from macular degeneration (despite this, he has no trouble helping Bernice track down Rodney). You might ask, after making their way down to Mexico, how the heroic trio ends up locating Bernice's errant son. Well, they're driving on a street and suddenly locate his truck, like any old needle in a haystack. Freddy attaches an old time tracking device, to the truck's under carriage and whenever they get close, it begins to beep. After losing the signal, miraculously the device begins beeping again while Bernice and company find themselves off the beaten track, in the middle of the desert.
Along the way the narrative is rife with other absurdities including a scene where Bernice shoots an off duty Mexican police officer in the foot (again, she is a Parole Officer but seems to never have any fear about losing her job). Meanwhile, Fontayne, during her time down in Mexico, has little to do but act as a cheerleader in the back seat of the car, as they all search for the missing Rodney. All's well that ends well when the trio locates the padlocked truck, free the smuggled Chinese stuffed into the back of the truck like sardines, along with Rodney, sans one ear, which earlier had been lopped off by the kidnappers as a part of their ransom demand.
Tomas Hachard of NPR couldn't have put it any better about 'Go for Sisters', when he writes: "Regardless of the tone it's searching for, the movie lacks a sense of urgency: What could have been a series of explosive chases after criminals in Mexico turns into a mostly staid if sometimes absurd trip through the borderland. And what could have been a rare, intimate portrait of two black female characters never pushes beyond a superficial profile."
'Go for Sisters' is not a complete disaster by any means and I would recommend one viewing as both the characters and dialogue are engaging. In the end, however, the film suffers from a lack of verisimilitude in the mechanics of its plot, rendering it a weak entry amongst this year's indie feature releases.
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