ALOHA

Reviewed by Patrick Gibbs

GRADE: B -

Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone,  Rachel McAdams, John Krasinski, Danny McBride and Bill Murray

Written and Directed by Cameron Crowe
Rated PG-13 (Profanity, sex, vulgarity)

There are a lot of things you can say about Cameron Crowe as a writer and director. He writes wonderfully clever dialogue (and sometimes it's so clever that you don't believe it, especially when every single character talks that way.). His characters tend to contain an undeniable element of truth (yet are often so far removed from the relatable world of normal people that they might as well be robotic dinosaurs) and his stories shine in their day to day simplicity (and are often bogged down by their over reaching and convoluted settings.). What you cannot say is that he isn't ambitious or passionate, or that he ever gets less than 100 percent from his actors.

Aloha follows Brian Gilchrist (Bradley Cooper), a once great military pilot and aspiring astronaut who had some bad breaks, some of them caused by fate and others by his shallow, self destructive nature (see Jerry Maguire). He now works for a billionaire contractor named Carson Welch (Bill Murray), who wants to launch a satellite from Hawaii and must negotiate a deal. Despite prior screw ups, Gilchrist is given the job of brokering this deal because he knows the land and the people, and has a past friendship with Dennis "Bumpy" Kanahele (who plays himself), the leader of the Hawaiian Nation.

The upside of this assignment is the paycheck and the chance to get back in Carson's good graces. The bad side is having to face his former serious flame, Tracy (Rachel McAdams), whom he hasn't seen since she left him a little over 12 Years ago, along with her husband Woody (John Krasinski) and their two kids, including her suspiciously twelve-year-old daughter.

Matters are further complicated when Gilchrist meets his military liason/babysitter, a Captain Allison Ng (Emma Stone) an extremely bright and capable young woman with boundless energy and enthusiasm who seems to be thrilled to work with Gilchrist and fascinated by him as something of a legend (no, this never does play entirely as convincing as a complication, and certainly not as an annoyance. "Emma Stone at her absolute cutest but also intelligent, driven and capable wants to follow me everywhere I go!" I weep for you and your problems, pal.).

Of course, Gilchrist and Ng (her father was half Chinese-Half Hawaiian, which explains why her hair is half blond, half red) get on each others nerves (especially after he overhears her calling him a wreck of a man and comparing him to a sad coyote), but as they spend time together they begin to form a good working relationship, particularly when it is really the young Captain who makes the deal with the natives work out, not Gilchrist. The more time they spend together, the more she breaks down his barriers, and a mutual attraction starts to develop quickly.

But let us not forget Tracy, the women who slipped through his fingers, nor her increasingly distant relationship with her current husband, her precocious son who loves Gilchrist and needs attention from someone, or her suspiciously 12- year-old daughter. Or the extremely narcissistic Carson Welch, who may have a hidden agenda/be a Lex Luthor style super-villain secretly planning something involving putting weapons into space above Hawaii even though Emma Stone at her cutest but also intelligent, driven and capable promised Bumpy Kanahele that this would never, ever happen. Or the General (Alec Baldwin), who distrusts Gilchrist and is comically angry all the time because he he has to have a reason for being played by Alec Baldwin, or Danny McBride as Gilchrist's old friend and Ng's superior officer, caught between the two but not wanting to deal with anything at all if he can help it. Or Gilchrist's pet robosaurus, who seems to be achieving self awareness and does not wish to be deactivated (I may have made up one of those.).

If you are getting the sense that Aloha bites off a bit more than it can chew, you are not alone. Crowe
seems to be intent on adding as many story elements as he can to what, at its best, is an intimate character piece and romantic dramedy, and it makes for an uneasy mix. This is not a new problem for Crowe, though this film may represent the problem at its most extreme. His basic determination to never portray life as simple and easily focused is something I really like about his work, but the fact that this movie literally includes a super-villain played by Bill Murray is definitely a problem in terms of the whole "slice of life" factor, and it is unfortunate that the compelling human elements are framed by silly contrivances that have to resolved when you'd much rather just be watching Cooper and especially Stone do what they do best, namely, create real people we can get invested in and care about. In addition, the controversy that is starting to erupt that the movie is a little thin on it's ethnic diversity is not unfounded. The white people and the native Hawaiians are almost completely segregated throughout, and quite honestly, while it is nice that we don't see painful clichés like Don Ho singing "Tiny Bubbles," more time could have been spent on showing off the beauty of the island scenery and exploring cultural divides and similarities and less time on spy games and a rather ridiculous resolution to the "Garfield's private nuclear arsenal in space" plotline.

Still, I have to admit that despite its many flaws, I liked this movie better than most critics. The performances of the leads are divine, and however in love Crowe may often get with his own dialogue throughout his career (and the attraction is frankly quite understandable, if annoying at times), what resonates most with me about his work is the commitment both he and his actors have to what is expressed through silence, facial expressions and body language. This is taken to extremes here, blatantly parodied in a memorable moment between Cooper and Krasinski, who plays wonderfully against type, to a beautiful, heartfelt sequence between Cooper and young Danielle Rose Russell as Grace, Tracy's suspiciously 12-year-old daughter, that regardless of what any critic says about this film is, I predict, destined to be a scene pointed to by acting teachers, coaches and casting directors for years to come as the standard for connecting emotionally with your fellow actor, being in the moment and letting the emotion just come out naturally and honestly. The scene is a triumph for the two actors and the director both, and resonated far more with me than anything Cooper did in American Sniper.

Aloha is far from great, and while Cooper and Stone are the best thing about it, they also work against it, in that the moment you start thinking about Silver Linings Playbook or Birdman, the brief illusion that this is a genuine gem of a movie is destroyed. That being said, they are still a joy to watch, and for me this was enough of a welcome antidote to awful films such as Poltergeist or merely the intense loudness of the big blockbusters that I can't go to hard on it. You have to be pretty forgiving to really enjoy it, and a bit of a sentimental fool, but in the end I suppose I was feeling very forgiving when I saw it, and I have never claimed that I am not a fool.