Tag Archives: Edward James Olmos

Sayles’s Sisters Deserved Better

Go For Sisters

by Hope Madden

Writer/director John Sayles has built a career on character driven independents and stories that tell uniquely American tales. His latest, Go for Sisters, is a simply stated effort about the value of hard-won relationships.

LisaGay Hamilton plays Bernice, a no-nonsense parole officer who bends her strident ways when her childhood friend Fontayne (an exceptional Yolanda Ross) becomes her client. Fontayne recently found herself in the company of a felon, which breaks her parole. But where Fontayne lives, felons are just about the only company possible to keep.

Fontayne knows the score, predicting Bernice’s thoughts based on prior experience. “This sorry girl ain’t got her shit together. We gon’ have to lock her up some more.”

To Fontayne’s surprise, Bernice relents. But where Bernice should reassign Fontayne to another parole officer, instead she enlists her help to find her own missing son, an ex-soldier gone missing and likely mixed up in something dodgy.

Though both performances, and that of Edward James Olmos as the retired cop helping them track the missing man, are very strong, Sayles strings together scenes with no panache at all, creating something akin to TV detective show. The plot is so plainly laid out that it becomes an afterthought, no doubt because Sayles’s interest lies with the characters, not their adventure. But the audience has to feel compelled by both.

The adventure contains too many clandestine meetings and coincidences for the investigation to carry the weight of authenticity, and Sayles never mines for real plot-driven tension. It’s far too light a touch given the circumstances of the kidnapping.

Instead, Sayles wonders about the reasons the two women lost each other twenty years ago, and the paths they took to such different lives, and then come back to each other. Theirs is a poignant and probably very familiar kind of struggle, and it deserves our attention. It’s just too bad Sayles had to drag us all across the American Southwest and into Mexico to discover it.

 

Verdict-2-5-Stars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w0mA6Sg_gs

2 Cool

 

by George Wolf

 

Last year, director Baltasar Kormakur and star Mark Wahlberg managed to make the heist thriller Contraband a good bit better than it probably should have been.

This year they up the ante, utilizing a snappy script, one Mr. Denzel Washington and a solid ensemble cast to make 2 Guns one of the most entertaining films of the summer.

Granted, it may be forgotten by fall, but right now, as a weak film season winds down, this type of stylish fun is welcome. And it’s all rooted in the undeniable chemistry of the two leads.

Wahlberg is “Stig,” an undercover naval intelligence officer, and Denzel is Bobby, an undercover DEA agent. Though they’re working together to infiltrate a drug cartel, neither knows the other is one of the good guys.

A few double crosses later, and they’ve got a ruthless drug lord (Edward James Olmos), a sleazy CIA boss (Bill Paxton, gleefully over the top) and a crooked navy officer (James Marsden)  threatening to kill them both unless they can hand over a massive load of stolen cash.

Kormakur sets the hook with a taut, mysterious opening, then maintains a crisp pace full of flashbacks, callbacks, and impressively staged action. Based on a series of graphic novels, the script from Blake Masters is witty but not overly comedic, and elaborate but not convoluted, while also managing to land a few jabs on U.S.- Mexican relations.  Nicely done.

Wahlberg’s performances always seem to reflect the level of talent around him, and he is very effective here, relishing the chance to be the comic relief side of a badass duo. Washington seems equally engaged, letting you feel the wheels turning as Bobby coolly  figures out what’s what. Their fun is contagious, to the audience as well as their fellow actors.

An engaging mix of buddy cop caper, spy thriller and Wild West shoot em up, 2 Guns is just the kick in the pants this movie summer needs.

 

Verdict-3-5-Stars