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The Banger Sisters
2002 - R - 98 Mins.
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| Director: Bob Dolman | | Producer: Mark Johnson, Elizabeth Cantillon | | Written By: Bob Dolman | | Starring: Susan Sarandon, Goldie Hawn, Geoffrey Rush, Erika Christensen |
| Review by: Joe Rickey |
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Two rock groupies grow older and go their separate ways, one basically staying in the wild and crazy lifestyle while the other goes on to be a serious businesswomen with a good life who is clueless to the troubled behavior of her daughter. The wild one decides to go and visit her, tagging along is a depressed screenwriter who is contemplating killing his father, which upsets her rather bland new lifestyle.
Predictable and rather like a feature length sitcom at times but highlighted by two fine lead performances by Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon and a rather humorous supporting turn by Geoffrey Rush, The Banger Sisters is acceptable comedic fare. The film is very predictable throughout with no real surprises popping up along the way. The film lacks any big surprise to make it stand apart from other such comedies because the audience knows what is coming minutes ahead of time after it becomes apparent that the film is content with being predictable. The film lacks any real filmlike qualities in its story or the way it is presented to make it feel like anything more than just a sitcom that just so happens to be blessed with a talented cast of both relatively new and veteran actors. The cinematography is bland and the music is certainly not as good as it could have been considering the material in the film.
The performances are the standouts in the film. Goldie Hawn is often a riot as the aged wild groupie who has never really grown up despite witnessing others doing just that around her. Hawn almost appears to be playing the same role as her daughter Kate Hudson did in Almost Famous a few years ago and she is enjoyable while doing so. Hawn never succumbs to the urge to go over the top and, as a result, her character never becomes a caricature. Sarandon is good as well but is occasionally handcuffed by the screenplay, which makes her new persona too uptight and altogether unlikable. She simply is really hard to empathize with or otherwise relate to. Geoffrey Rush is good once again as he makes his depressed character not too dark to accept in what is supposed to be a comedy as his character supplies some of the biggest laughs in the film. As Sarandon’s troubled daughter, Erika Christensen is quite good in a rather poorly written role because she is really just playing a version of her character from the far more serious Traffic.
Overall, The Banger Sisters is a mostly fine film with good performances across the board that suffers from predictability and blandness at times.
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