Review of Aloha (2015) by Greg B — 08 Jun 2015

"Aloha" is a Cameron Crowe film starring Bradley Cooper as a weapons contractor for NASA who is a puppet for a rich financier (Bill Murray) who wants to put a satellite with a missile payload into orbit to control telecommunications and diplomatic channels worldwide.

Cooper travels to Hawaii to try and convince the indigenous population to grant him the land rights to build a base there. Emma Stone plays his Air Force liaison, foil, and love interest. Throw into the mix the abandoned ex-girlfriend (Rachel McAdams) and you have the perfect recipe for some on-point farce.

I thought this film had great potential, but the script muddied it up. The exchanges are very subtle; almost trying to be sophisticated, but the inherent subtlety and subtext embedded in the dialogue comes out unfocused in translation.

There are good ideas in this film like redemption, but the plot is too confusing to sustain many of them. A lot of the dialogue also feels forced, and some exchanges are clichéd and frankly cheesy. This film could have used editing work.

A lot of the filler conversation is fluff and does nothing to carry the story along. This film could have been truncated from its current running time to roughly two thirds of that. Cameron Crowe has done better, but I'm afraid this time he misfires on a flawed script ---------------------------------------------------------------------- C+.