My favorite indie writer-director John Sayles has created three more wonderful characters in Go for Sisters. Bernice (LisaGay Hamilton from Men of a Certain Age and Jackie Brown) is a no-nonsense parole officer. Fontayne (Yolonda Ross) is an ex-con fighting to maintain her sobriety through minimum wage jobs in a drug-filled neighborhood. Freddy (Edward James Olmos) is an unfairly disgraced cop who is almost blind from macular degeneration. Bernice and Fontayne were high school friends who took different paths. Bernice’s adult son has gotten involved in some illegal activity, and when he disappears, Bernice need Fontayne’s street connections to help find him. Soon they need to enlist Freddy, and soon the three are off on chase back and forth through the under world on both sides of the US-Mexico border. All three characters are emotionally damaged from personal loss – and all three are fighting through their pain.
Go for Sisters is in the construct of a thriller, but it’s not the greatest thriller around, although Sayles gets what he can from a radio tracking device and an attempted miggung in a Tijuana dildo shop. What makes Go for Sister – and all of Sayles’ films – worthwhile is the characters. We’ve never met these individuals before, but they are believable and we care about them. Excellent acting from the three stars helps a lot. (And there’s a nice scene with Hector Elizondo.)
This is minor Sayles – it doesn’t compare to Eight Men Out, Passion Fish, The Secret of Roan Inish, City of Hope or his 1996 masterpiece Lone Star. Still, it’s a solid character driven film (and will be a good video choice in 2014).