Don't Mess with My Sister!

Meir Zahari's first film, I Spit On Your Grave was originally entitled The Day of the Woman. In Don't Mess With My Sister, it's time for Man to make a comeback. The main character has a problem with his wife and her two brothers and is lucky enough to make it with an erotic blonde exotic dancer. After the pair kill one of her clients and his wife begins to suspect her husband isn't just studying accounting at night school, she gets her brothers to take revenge. Any more would destroy the plot. Needless to say this film was made with Zahari's unique stylistic approach. Don't miss it. I didn't, I bought the rights!

Steven is a scrap-yard bookkeeper who's working for his wife's brothers and attending night school to get his accounting degree. His life takes a turn for the worst when he falls for and finally hooks up for the night with the belly dancer that was hired for his birthday, which just happens to go the same school. This leads to trouble for Steven, as his wife and her brothers find out about it and trouble suddenly occurs.

Well, I was expecting way worse. I just don't know. Maybe because I knew what I was getting myself into, but I didn't think it was all that bad of a low-budget flick, as its made out to be. I guess people were expecting another ultra-relentless exploitation foray in the shape of "I Spit On Your Grave". But this follow up is far from it and on a totally different level. You could probably blame all of this on poor and ill-conceived advertising that treats it like one.

Instead "Don't Mess with My Sister" is playing for an oddball, if raw drama that deals with family values, infidelity and a working class trying to make ends meat. After the controversy of the begin all and end all "I Spit..", Zarchi was probably trying to gain some respectability here. I expect that killed it for most viewers, but still it's quite a competent display by director / writer Meir Zarchi who keeps it on cruise control and strings along many different spontaneous developments amongst his own vogue. The impulsively junky plot could have gone towards a sleazy and brutal revenge angle, but Zarchi skewed away from this and the results weren't awful, but modest. The sultry music score by Todd Rice was simply oozing and controlled photography by Phil Gries got down amongst the grit. Acting from the no-name cast was more than suitable and Joe Perce's performance as the straight-mannered Steven was adequate and believable. Sure, it's far from great, but was I kept interested and entertained for it short running time. It does lull about in spots and the (lack of an) ending isn't much, but it delivers on those fronts that count if you're not looking for too much.

Simply it's not all that bad, if you know what you're getting. Which is a kooky drama.

This movie is definitely one of the worst movies I have seen. It takes about an hour before anything happens that would lead to any conflict, and then just when it looks like things are going to pick up, it just ends. Nothing gets resolved, all the plot points brought up don't conclude, nothing happens. It just goes on for 85 minutes to have NO POINT. Barely any violence, either. This so called "Revenge flick" has barely any of the sort. Avoid this movie at all costs.

My review was written in June 1988 after watching the movie on Vidamerica video cassette.

Beneath that oddball title resides a peculiar dramatic film about "little people" and their problems which never becomes gripping. Filmmaker Meir Zarchi (of "Day of the Woman") fails to develop his material in interesting fashion.

Filme in Gotham in 1983 undr the tile "America Junkyard", "Sister" concerns a group of Italian Americans: Steven (Joe Pesce) is an accounting student working at an auto junkyard run by his two brothers-in-law (Jack Gurci, Peter Sapienza). He's frustrated because they won't make him a partner. Key plot device is a birthday party thrown by his family whee a belly dancer (fellow student at the university) Annika (Laura Lanfranchi) performs for Steven, who later has an affair with her. Hot blood of his wife (Jeannine Lemay) and her brothers quickly comes to a boil, hence the title.

Goofy plot device has Steven saving Annika from a lustful businessman when she gives a "private performance", in the struggle the businessman is injured and later dies. Climax has Steven and family in a confrontation at gunpoint at their junkyard leading to a wimpy finish of our hero walking away while wifey runs after him; she screams "I'll never give you a surprise party again".

As that final outburst indicates, "Sister" treads that thin line between camp and melodrama but isn't outlandish enough to become truly funny. Acting is okay yet in a spirit of "who cares?" permeates the picture from start to finish. Cast's concerns remain relentlessly petty and the symbolic value of the junkyard setting never catches fire.

Don't Mess with My Sister! (1985) * (out of 4)

Steven (Joe Perce) is stuck working at a junk yard for his wife's two brothers who are always picking on him and not paying him what he's worth. One night at a party being thrown for him, Steven strikes up a conversation with dancer Annika (Laura Lanfranchi) and soon after they are involved in an affair. When the wife finds out she informs her brothers who aren't happy with Steven.

Writer-director Meir Zarchi crashed onto the scene with his notorious I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE but it took him several more years before he came back with his second feature. With a title ilke DON'T MESS WITH MY SISTER! fans were expecting soem sort of exploitation trash but that's not what they got and this film has pretty much been forgotten. To be honest with you, I'm really not sure what Zarchi was trying with this picture but it certainly doesn't work.

Once you get past the fact that you're not getting anything like I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, this film lets you down even more because there's really no point to anything you're watching. There must have been at least thirty times during the film where I wondered to myself what I was watching and what the point was. This is basically a drama about a man who gets tired of his wife and her brothers so he cheats on her with a questionable person. I won't ruin what happens but it's certainly not evough to warrant a feature length film.

The film clocks in at just 84-minutes and there's really not a bit of energy throughout. Zarchi really doesn't click as a director here as everything just comes across very flat and without much energy. It certainly doesn't help that some of the performances are really bad and get unintended laughs at times. Through in the fact that there's really not any violence, gore or nudity and you're left with a film that just isn't going to have much appeal.

DON'T MESS WITH MY SISTER! is a pretty poor film no matter how you look at it. I'm really not sure what the director was trying to do or why he thought this material would be something worth making.