Crowe's Hawaiian rom-com 'Aloha' awash in overwritten, inflated dialogue
Cameron Crowe's Hawaii-based rom-com drama "Aloha" suffers not only from a low ha factor, but from overwritten, inflated dialogue that makes its characters sound like they've just stepped out of a graduate student's play oozing with clever verbosity.
Crowe has a long and respected history for creating crisp, revealing exchanges, as well as crafting an occasional classic quip. ("Show me the money!" and "You had me at hello" belong to him.)
In "Aloha," his characters constantly find all the right words to launch at the right time. That works well for communications efficiency, but we have a tough time relating to these too quick and too articulate people in a world of pineapples and ancient myths.
Even so, Crowe's movie isn't nearly as awful as Sony film boss Amy Pascal described in corporate emails revealed during last November's computer hack attack against the studio.
She wrote, "I don't care how much I love the director and the actors. It never, not even once, ever works." This, despite that Sony billed "Aloha" as "the summer's smartest romantic comedy."
Pascal worried that Crowe's characters would be viewed as unlikeable, and at least one of them, Brian Gilcrest, dances on that fine line between the acceptable and despicable.
Bradley Cooper brings his easygoing charm and azure blue eyes to Brian, a damaged soul and a notorious military contractor who has, as we discover, a most unsavory past that almost killed him.
He arrives in Hawaii as a hired gun for billionaire industrialist Carson Welch, a shady fellow played with fermenting ruthlessness by Bill Murray. He didn't like how an earlier partnership worked out, but he's willing to give Brian a second chance.
Upon arrival, Brian is met by his liaison, Air Force fighter pilot Captain Allison Ng (Emma Stone), an outgoing, rigidly disciplined woman who constantly reminds people she's one-quarter Hawaiian.
She has been assigned to help Brian secure an agreement between the military (or Welch) and local Hawaiian leaders, specifically a chieftain who reveals his feelings about the United States on his T-shirt: "Hawaiian by birth" it says on the front, "American by force" it says on the back.
Besides Captain Ng, Brian sees another woman at the airport when he lands, the alluring Tracy Woodside (Rachel McAdams).
Brian stands mesmerized, a flash of recognition covering his face, coming out his eyes.
"Ah, the old ex-girlfriend!" Colonel "Fingers" Lacy (Danny McBride) announces, just in case audience members can't interpret Brian's flash of recognition. "Pause for the memories," Fingers tells Brian.
Tracy has since married Woody (John Krasinski), an Air Force C-17 pilot who can't talk about his work, ever. And he extends this silence to his wife, 12-year-old daughter Grace (Danielle Rose Russell) and 10-year-old son Mitchell (Jaeden Lieberher).
Brian finds Captain Ng very attractive, but seeing Tracy again, in her less-than-perfect domestic life, gives him hope he might have a second chance with her, to make things right after botching their relationship.
"Aloha" ultimately swerves into an awkward tale of personal redemption for Brian, whose moral and ethical shortcomings should put him in the "villain" category in most romantic comedies.
The mechanism by which Brian saves his soul involves a secretive space launch, which might be carrying an illegal cargo of nuclear weapons. It's an ostentatious piece of narrative overkill that demands a main plot status, not just a backdrop to Brian's venial sins and personal conflicts.
Does Brian get more second chances? He's in a movie all about second chances.
In case you don't get it, one of Welch's henchmen spells it out for us.
"A second chance?" he says, "Who doesn't want a second chance?"
Has anyone asked the Hawaiians who wear T-shirts saying "American by force"?
“Aloha”
★ ★ ½
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, Bill Murray, Danny McBride, John Krasinski
Directed by: Cameron Crowe
Other: A Columbia Pictures release. Rated PG-13 for language. 105 minutes