WlfrmG
In First Wives Club, Goldie Hawn said: 'There are only three ages for women in Hollywood: "Babe", "District Attorney", and "Driving Ms.Daisy."' Goldie Hawn was for three decades the eternal babe. However, even for Goldie Hawn there came a time, when 'babe' was no longer possible. With Banger Sisters she is for the last time 'babe' and is also saying good bye to this role, as she realised that she is too old for this. Consequently, she never appeared again in any other movie after Banger Sisters, evidently as she does not want to become "District Attorney". Banger Sister is about two women looking back on their lives. They were friends when young but developed in different directions after separating. Suzette (played by Goldie Hawn) stayed 'babe' and worked as bar tender in music clubs, while Lavinia (Susan Sarandon) married a lawyer and politician and became mother of two daughters. They also meet Harry(Geoffrey Rush) who also looks back on his life and on missed opportunities. The film is not perfect. The speech of Lavinia's daughter at the end is just embarrassing. Otherwise it is sometimes funny, sometimes sentimental. The film is also about friendship and how friendship can develop (here between Suzette and Harry) and how friendship can survive over decades.
carolineodonnell
I loved this film because it reminded me of when i was a teenager and how we didn't care about what happened. But it also made me think about who i am today and if I'm being true to myself.That feeling of do i dress like an old woman, or do i look like the way i feel.I love the 3 main characters and I'm not sure if i'm Suzette or Vinnie, think I'm probably a bit of both.A few years ago i was dressing like Lavinia, but now dress the way i want to and i don't care what anyone thinks.I used to wear stuff like Suzette, but I've toned it down now lol I wish my best friend was here still xx
filmbuff-36
Remember those scenes in "Almost Famous" where Penny Lane realizes with painful honesty just what her value is to the rock band she has remained loyal to, finding out that she has been "traded" to Humble Pie in exchange for a 12-pack of beer? "The Banger Sisters" is a movie that wishes that scene never happened.Oh sure, it starts off looking like it might make some sort of similar argument, but "The Banger Sisters" is a movie that becomes more repugnant as it goes along. That it's a comedy is meant to resolve its silly nature I suppose, but really, what message is being expressed here? The movie opens and we discover that time has not been kind to Suzette. A former rock group hanger-on, she has just been fired from her job as a bartender in a seedy L.A. club for committing the cardinal sin in the rock business: growing old. I hope you enjoy this rare moment, because it's one of the few times in the film that the story actually suggests that being a groupie is not the best career choice for a young women.Suz, in a state of depression and being the mooch that she is, decides to hunt down her old fellow groupie and best friend Vinnie so she can relive old times and get some money from her. Surely Vinnie will be sympathetic to her needs, having spent her entire life as a party girl as well.This is not to be. Suz arrives in Phoenix to discover her best friend and fellow bedwarmer is now, *gasp* well-dressed, lives in a clean, pre-planned community, gainfully employed in a job that doesn't require mopping puke off the floor and married! Horror upon horrors! Vinnie and her family react to Suz's appearance at first as an unwelcome guest and an embarrassing reminder of Vinnie's wild past, which she had carefully up until this point hidden from her brood. But that's won't do for this story! Suz is determined to reignite Vin's partying passions, and after a terse dinner conversation brings up Vinnie's past, where she recounts Jim Morrison's legacy as the Lizard King, she breaks down and laments how she "lost herself" amid the hustle and bustle of suburban life.She and Suz decide it's time to get loose. It's time to party. It's time to look at pictures of Jimmy Page's penis. Yes boys and girls, Vinnie is back in town! With a quick makeover complete with spiky hair and clothes that even Lil' Kim might take an awkward glance at, Vinnie is now ready to get down with her funky self.Writer/director Bob Doleman has crafted a film that argues in favor of instant gratification and the mindless cult worship of rock celebrities. Even in the few moments where Suz is forced to examine her life choices, the movie never quite brings itself to condemn her. It's all the unsympathetic world's fault, man! You should be allowed to party all the time and devote your life to living in other people's shadows without question! Okay, throughout all this, Vinnie's family is shown to be stuck-up, ignorant of rock'n'roll and unsympathetic to Vinnie's past. That her daughters are both air-headed turds is never in question, but what crime did her lawyer/politician husband do to deserve this? Dear lord, one moment his wife is a happy real estate agent, the next she looks like she's ready to go down on a guitarist for bus fare. Can you blame his revulsion?Well, apparently the movie can, because when his wife and her friend show up at their daughter's high school graduation looking like refugees from a Twisted Sister music video, he just smiles and tells them to take their seat. What just happened? The movie ends with Vinnie's daughter, who is the class valedictorian, giving some dumb speech that ends with her pleading that her classmates "Do it true." Everyone smiles and nods, and I just stare dumb-faced. Someone was actually paid to write a line that horrible, and what's more, the characters in the film react as though she was channeling Martin Luther King.In my review, I neglected to mention another character with prominent screen time, a struggling writer named Harry. Really though, he is merely ancillary to the plot, and serves to be another person to reassure Suz that she hasn't wasted her life. Gag.So what we have here is a film that not only glamorizes the activities of a subset of human beings who deserve to be pitied and scoffed at, but actually has the audacity to argue that growing up, becoming a respectable member of society and marrying someone whose ambitions lie beyond living from day to day on handouts is some sort of moral crime against oneself. Suz treats every aspect of Vinnie's life with suspicion, disbelief or disdain, and I get the feeling the movie is asking we join her.That this whole thing is "cute" and "lighthearted" makes the movie all the more reprehensible. Is the movie well-made? Yes. Well-acted? Yes. Well-conceived? Well, the filmmakers surely did everything in their power to romanticize the life of a groupie. Well-received? Not a chance in heck. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me, given how Susan Sarandon got her big break in a movie where she sang "Touch me touch touch me touch me! I want to feel dirty!" but still, what a nasty trip to the well this whole thing was.4 out of 10 stars. Young women should take note that if you try to replicate the lifestyles that this film choose to treat as innocent, cute and even morally righteous (Yeah! Stick it to the man!) you could probably end up dead from AIDS, an overdose in some seedy hotel, or traded for a pack of beer.
