After Kate Hudson’s role as an early ’70s groupie goddess in “Almost Famous,” her golden-aged mom, Goldie Hawn, proves that she can play the groupie role just as well.
In fact, one could almost consider Bob Dolman’s newest comedy, “The Banger Sisters,” to be the sequel to “Almost Famous.”
The Whiskey A Go-Go and Sunset Strip in Los Angeles -–that’s where it all happened: the drugs, the sex, and the good old rock n’ roll.
That’s also where the Banger Sisters (implications of the name are correct) gained their gracious title.
During their heyday, they were proud of being the female legends whose achievements were scribbled on the walls of the men’s bathroom stalls.
That is, as long as their names were connected to the likes of Jim Morrison and Frank Zappa.
Then the 21st century rolls around and Suzette (Goldie Hawn, “First Wives Club”) is striving to maintain her bar temptress/seductress position at the Whiskey A Go-Go, but fails to realize that times are not as loose as they were in the days of the “Lizard King.”
Suzette loses her job and seeks out her crazy partner from the past. Lavinia, a.k.a. “Vinnie” (Susan Sarandon, “Stepmom”) is now living in Phoenix with her lawyer husband, two daughters and a golden retriever.
Along the way, Geoffrey Rush (“Shine”) wiggles into the script as a stuffy, paranoid writer named Harry.
He becomes Suzette’s road trip partner and confesses that he is going to Phoenix to shoot his father for being unsupportive of his writing career.
When Suzette pops up in Lavinia’s backyard, the soccer mom offers Suzette $5,000 to get out of her life.
Lavinia cannot afford to lose her reputation on the account of her past.
She has a valedictorian for a daughter (who trips acid behind her mother’s back), her husband is a prestigious lawyer and she is highly involved in charity work.
But before you can say, “Blah-di-dah,” Vinnie is back (and wearing skin-tight leopard pants at the age of fifty)!
Here are two actresses, Hawn and Sarandon, who take on a mediocre script, written by Dolman, and redeem the weak lines with glowing performances.
The appearance and visual stylings of the film are reminiscent of Disney’s live action movies, such as “The Boy Who Could Fly.”
However, this is the first film Dolman has directed.
Maybe next time he will upgrade to the caliber of “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.”
“The Banger Sisters” is a good movie for those who feel nostalgic about the’ 60s and ’70s.
While the teens and twentysomethings will sit through this movie and occasionally laugh ibetween yawns, the fifty-somethings who remember their decadent ’60s experiences will be stifling bouts of laughter into a box of popcorn or looking silly with a plastered, wistful grins on their faces.
FYI: the storyline of “Sisters” is actually somewhat based on the well-known “Plaster Casters” of the ’60s.
The “casters” were a couple of wild women whowere known for erecting plaster molds of the “instruments” of Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, and other famous rock musicians of that era.
