The Banger Sisters

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amznwin.focus();} document.open(); document.write("<a href=javascript:popUp('http://buybox.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=reelmoviecriticc&link_code=xsc&creative=23424&camp=2025&path=/dt/assoc/tg/aa/xml/assoc/-/B00005JLNZ/reelmoviecriticc/ref=ac_bb1_,_amazon')><img src=http://rcm-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/associates/remote-buy-box/buy1.gif border=0 alt='Buy from Amazon.com' ></a>"); document.close(); </script> <noscript> <form method="POST" action="http://buybox.amazon.com/o/dt/assoc/handle-buy-box=B00005JLNZ"> <input type="hidden" name="asin.B00005JLNZ" value="1"> <input type="hidden" name="tag-value" value="reelmoviecriticc"> <input type="hidden" name="tag_value" value="reelmoviecriticc"> <input type="image" name="submit.add-to-cart" value="Buy from Amazon.com" border="0" alt="Buy from Amazon.com" src="http://rcm-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/associates/add-to-cart.gif"> </form> </noscript>  </B></div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="579" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 20 WIDTH="575"><div> <B>The Banger Sisters </B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#FFCC66" FACE="Wingdings 2" ><B>ê</B></FONT><B>1/2 (R)</B></div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="575"><div> Reviewed By Brenda Sexton</div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="549" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 23 WIDTH="545"><div> Trying too hard</div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="580" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="269"><div> Suzette:  Goldie Hawn</div> </tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="304"><div> Hannah:  Erika Christensen</div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 ><NOBR><div> Lavinia Kingsley:  Susan Sarandon</div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="304"><div> Ginger:  Eva Amurri</div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="269"><div> Harry:  Geoffrey Rush</div> </tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP><NOBR><div> Raymond Kingsley:  Robin Thomas</div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 ><NOBR><div> Director and Writer:  Bob Dolman</div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="304"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="19" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="304" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> 30 Second Bottom Line: After twenty years apart, two former rock `n roll groupies reunite.  Initially, they couldn't be more different from each other, but eventually, they recreate a friendship.</div> <bR> <div> <B>Story Line:</B> Suzette (Goldie Hawn) is a worn out, heavy boozing, hard-living woman who, after twenty years, is still tending bar at Whiskey-a-Go-Go on the Strip in L A.  Not one for following the corporate game plan, Suzette blatantly drinks her rum and Cokes nonstop on the job, essentially egging on the young, preppy manager to fire her-which he does rather dismissively.  Now, totally down and out, Suzette decides to hit up her former friend and groupie, Lavinia (Susan Sarandon), who is married, wealthy and living the good life in Phoenix.</div> <bR> <div> Without enough money for gas for her beater car, Suzette starts panhandling at a truck stop. She ends up giving a ride to a neurotic, </div> <div> miserable, unsuccessful writer, in exchange for gas money. After thirty years of failure in L A he is on his way home to Phoenix to shoot his father (he has a gun with one bullet in it).  They, of course, are hugely mismatched and appalled by each other-he's so uptight he's about to crack, and she is so disheveled and boozy that she makes him cringe.  </div> <bR> <div> When Suzette shows up unannounced on Lavinia's (Susan Sarandon's) doorstep, she's almost mauled by Lavinia who clearly wants her past kept under a rock.  Suzette's presence threatens her tidy, controlled, and proper world.  Shooed away by Lavinia, Suzette throws herself into the arms of Harry who eventually and reluctantly has his first sex in ten years with her.</div> <bR> <div> The gals eventually come together, Suzette forcing Lavinia to loosen up and bring some of her old identity into her current life.  Harry falls in love with Suzette and comes to terms with his own identity, and Lavinia's family is rocked to its core as they realize their mother (and wife) had a wild past and is not who they think she is.</div> <bR> <div> <B>Tell Me More About It: </B>I hugely admire both Susan Sarandon and Goldie Hawn, and went to the screening of this film wanting to love it, to laugh and cry and bond with these two beautiful, over-fifty, fabulous women.  Well, it didn't happen.  Like the movie "Crush" with Andie McDowell (who is also so outstanding) this story tries too hard to be hip and shockingly sexy.  </div> <bR> <div> There was so much I didn't like about this movie that I need to reduce it to just a few points. The good news is that these <I>are</I> older, sexy, beautiful women, but there are too many antics, mega overacting and ridiculously weak male characters.  At the end, it's a bit of a leap as Raymond Kingsley (Robin Thomas), Lavinia's husband and a by-the-books attorney, who is gearing up to run for state office, is just bobbing his head and smiling as Suzette is saying her good-byes. It's as if she has freed his family from the burden of suburban constraints by revealing his wife's past.  We have no idea how or why he has so easily changed his mind and has gone from horrified shock to embracing her sleazy past.  Has he taken an extra dose of Prozac this morning to fake a sense of normalcy?  </div> <bR> <div> Harry, (Geoffrey Rush) who catches a ride with Suzette, and eventually falls in love with her, is too much of an exaggeration of a character.  He's horrified to be on the bus to Phoenix because two flies were copulating on his hand, yet he's willing to get into Suzette's filthy car and travel with this dirty, boozy woman.  I'm sorry, the thing about the two flies is simply pathetic writing and we deserve better.  </div> <bR> <div> One final issue I have is that the blatant sleaziness of what these gals did, banged rock stars to get to hang around with them, is never addressed.  Today we hear stories of thirteen-year-old girls playing spin the bottle to give blow jobs, and it just doesn't seem so cool to me that these women banged thousands of guys and have pictures of their cocks to prove it. Further, it is accepted by everyone in the film as just a fun time; and that we all did crazy things in our youth.  And why do they keep saying twenty years ago?  Is thirty or thirty-five years ago that hard to say?</div> <bR> <div> I do maintain hope that in my lifetime there will be a solid story in a </div> <div> film portraying great, real women over forty, which will show their strength, sexiness, humor and the beauty and elegance that more time and experience has brought to them.  Unfortunately, this film is not it.</div> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="591" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="587"><div> Rating R (sexual theme, some sex)</div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="587"><div> Brenda D. Sexton © 2002</div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="587"><div> Brenda@reelmoviecritic.com</div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> <B>Mini Filmography </B></div> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="579" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 20 ><NOBR><div> Goldie Hawn:  First Wives Club</div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP><NOBR><div> Geoffrey Rush:  <A HREF="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/2002/id1802.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/2002/id18"><U><B>The Tailor of Panama</B></U></A></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 20 WIDTH="286"><div> Susan Sarandon:  Step Mom</div> </tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP><NOBR><div> Erika Christensen:  <B>Swimfan</B></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 20 WIDTH="286"><div> Eva Amurri:  Made-Up</div> </tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP><NOBR><div> Robin Thomas:  <A HREF="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/2002/id1775.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.reelmoviecritic.com/2002/id17"><U><B>Clockstoppers</B></U></A></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 ><NOBR><div> Bob Dolman: Directing debut</div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="286"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="19" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="286" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>