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The raunchy comedy "Sisters" rises and falls on the spicy chemistry of its stars, comic buddies Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.
Fey and Poehler play sisters Kate and Maura Ellis, and it's a bit of a character switch that Fey's Kate is the irresponsible party-loving one and Poehler's Maura is the hyper-controlled stick-in-the-mud. When their parents (James Brolin and Dianne Wiest) announce that they are selling the girls' childhood home in Orlando, the siblings decide to throw a wild party like they did as teens — except that this time, Kate has to be the sober "party mom" so the recently divorced Maura can possibly hook up with hunky neighbor James (Ike Barinholtz, from "The Mindy Project").
The script, by longtime "Saturday Night Live" writer Paula Pell, is mostly a framework from which Fey and Poehler can work off each other and a wide array of their comic friends, including Maya Rudolph, Bobby Moynihan, Rachel Dratch and John Leguizamo.
Director Jason Moore ("Pitch Perfect") can't seem to bear losing a minute of footage, so the pacing is slack and the movie feels about 15 minutes too long. But when Fey and Poehler are sparking together, the laughs are worth the downtime.
'Sisters'
Opens Friday, Dec. 18, at theaters everywhere; rated R for crude sexual content and language throughout, and for drug use; 118 minutes.