Sisters *** (2015, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph, Ike Barinholtz, Dianne Wiest, James Brolin, John Cena, John Leguizamo) – Movie Review

Amy Poehler and Tina Fey play the unlikeliest of sisters decide to throw an epic party when their parents decide to sell their family home. Predictable, sometimes funny mayhem ensues.

It’s more or less a two-woman show for two hours, with the stars hogging the screen and the limelight, raising a good quota of raucous, sometimes riotous laughs, though occasionally looking nervous as they look for laughs that aren’t in Paula Pell’s screenplay. The epic party plot is lame, so Poehler and Fey have to work overtime with the comedy schlep and Pell has to thrown in a many raunchy gags as she can find. Some of the laughs feel spontaneous and flow freely, but others feel mechanical and contrived, though they still might raise titters.

Ike Barinholtz does well as the token man, love interest James, but Dianne Wiest and James Brolin are thrown away as the sisters’ eccentric parents, and so are John Cena as Pazuzu and John Leguizamo as neighbour Dave. Worse, there are some slack and annoying support comedy turns, not least from Bobby Moynihan as tubby party-goer Alex and Greta Lee as Hae-Won.

Overall, though it’s no precision-judged, laugh riot like Trainwreck, it is reasonably funny, with two good turns from the welcome, well-paired, likeable star performers. It’s third movie they have starred in together, after Mean Girls (2004) and Baby Mama (2008). It is being advertised as ‘from the director of Pitch Perfect’ – Jason Moore.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Movie Review

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