Life leads us down unexpected paths sometimes. The friends of our past oftentimes become the strangers of our future. Yet, when it comes time to test that friendship, we’re surprised at how far people will go to help a friend in need… even if decades of silence have past. John Sayles’ Go for Sisters is a story about two close childhood friends who simply drifted away during high school. While their lives led them to complete opposite ends of the social spectrum, one incident brings the two back together.

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Go for Sisters
Director: John Sayles
Rating: N/A
Release Date: November 15, 2013

Bernice (LisaGay Hamilton) is a parole officer assigned to ex-convict, Fontayne (Yolanda Ross). The film opens with their first encounter at Bernice’s office, but it’s apparent that there’s history between them: they were former high school best friends. When Bernice discovers that her estranged son might have been connected to a murder, she turns to Fontayne to help introduce her to the less-than-legal side of the law. Their quest for answers leads them to an illegal human trafficking ring in Tijuana. They turn to a disgraced former cop, Freddy (Edward James Olmos), to help them navigate across the border to find Bernice’s missing son. What entails is a mystery, neo-noir character drama that analyzes the friendship between Bernice and Fontayne and how far a friend would go… for a sister.

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As a fan of writer/director John Sayles’ previous film, Amigo, I had an idea of what to expect from Sayles’ style of filmmaking. Go For Sisters‘ plot is compelling, but the true joy is in the adventure. Unfortunately, as was the case with Amigo, some of the writing and dialogue was incredibly bland. The interaction between Hamilton and Ross felt way too artificial. Ironically, the most interesting scenes were the ones involving Olmos’ Freddy, whose path for redemption led him through Tijuana’s criminal underbelly. Olmos is like a “lite” version of Danny Trejo as he carries a badass aura through Tijuana while he gathers intel on Bernice’s son’s whereabouts. In fact, a spin-off film covering Freddy Sanchez’ adventures would be infinitely more interesting than Go For Sisters.

What we have with Go For Sisters is a character drama that isn’t super dramatic or captivating. The adventure is way more interesting as the subject matter of border crossing is something I’m genuinely into, but the actual human component of the film, are so bland and boring. Go For Sisters takes a great topic, but bogs it down with an attempt at dramatizing the buddy/road film.

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Go For Sisters is a character film in which the characters themselves are the weak point. Yet in saying this, the film isn’t all that bad. It has all the right components to make a good film, it’s just that the interaction between characters just feels like it’s missing that certain “something” that would make it special.

Score: RH scoreRH scoreRH scoreRH scoreRH scoreRH score 6 out of 10