AN EX-COP LEADS A MANHUNT IN GO FOR SISTERS
Director John Sayles likes to depict those who are down-and-out but struggle to overcome the odds. In Go for Sisters, he focuses on Bernice (played by LisaGay Hamilton), a parole officer for the Los Angeles Police Department whose wayward son is a person of interest in an apparent gang murder. By chance, high school classmate Fontayne (Yolonda Ross), detained for a possible parole violation, appears before her in her office. Instead of sending her to a parole board hearing, she decides to utilize Fontayne’s street smarts in order to locate her missing son. When Fontayne finds out that he has been kidnapped by a gang south of the border, Bernice bankrolls help from former corrupt cop, Freddy Suarez (Edward James Olmos), who leads the African American “sisters” through a maze of Spanish-speaking underworld connections from Tijuana to Mexicali and Calexico. The film exposes the perilous life in Tijuana and Mexican border towns, a warning to anyone who might naïvely believe that they are tourist destinations. MH