[yasr_overall_rating]
A celebrated military contractor returns to the site of his greatest career triumphs and re-connects with a long-ago love while unexpectedly falling for the hard-charging Air Force watchdog assigned to him.
It is understandable that the Hawaiian natives are upset that this movie does not give proper representation of its people. What seems more disappointing to me, though, is the fact that neither of us could justify the amount of money it took to make this film, with the actual joy of seeing it. Other than the picturesque view of Hawaii, the only thing I can remember about this film is that it took way too long to get to the end. With heavy hitters such as Bill Murray, Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone and Rachel McAdams together in the same film, it would appear that a small, yet powerful script to go along with them, would be an ace in the hole, but I digress.
Brian Gilcrest (Bradley Cooper), stars as a Military Contractor who had several career highs in Hawaii and is contracted once again to return for a special project. As a sidebar, he is conveniently reminded of the fact that a former love interest will be there and he could rekindle the memories. In addition to this, he is assigned to a hard-nosed Air Force assistant, Captain Ng (Emma Stone) who makes his job even more challenging. The fact that his former love interest, Tracy Woodside (Rachel McAdams) is currently happily married with two children, doesn’t seem to matter much as they both are trying their best to hold on to and let go of their previous issues without jeopardizing their current status.
The relationship begins to get a little uncomfortable as Tracy’s husband, John “Woody” Woodside (John Krasinski) has to constantly deal with the fact that his wife has a soft spot for her ex, who is seemingly a fixture in his entire family’s life. The nonverbal shakedown that John gives Brian every time he sees him is funny, yet extremely awkward. Continuing with the awkwardness, Captain Ng is slowing falling for Brian, but his mind won’t allow her the opportunity to get to his heart, yet he is consistently trying to do things to impress her. In the midst of juggling his emotions, Brian is hell-bent on reversing the outcome of the special project he is assigned to, as he comes up with a plan to destroy the project in order to save lives, which in turn destroys his career. In the end, Brian becomes a hero, gets the other girl and still manages to stay in good graces with his ex.
I can’t imagine what Director/Writer Cameron Crowe had in mind for his audiences other than to be greatly annoyed at the fact that it took way too much time to get nowhere fast. Somewhere, something got lost in translation, and in the end I wasn’t sure if I was coming or going. Please see the film and let me know if you can figure out what I missed.
In theaters May 29th
