Aloha
Starring Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams
Directed by Cameron Crowe
As we're introduced to Brian Gilchrist (Bradley Cooper), we're left to wonder if writer-director Cameron Crowe perhaps sees something of himself in this once-principled military man who has since compromised his ideals in exchange for a sizeable paycheque. After all, the former Rolling Stone boy wonder was last seen soullessly churning out the toothless We Bought a Zoo.
However, it's likely more apt to suggest that such saccharine dreck – and the much-derided Elizabethtown which preceded it – was simply the unfortunate outcome when a heart-on-his-sleeve storyteller fully succumbs to sentimentalism. Aloha, then, is the sort of train wreck that can only occur when a filmmaker's storytelling skills abandon him entirely and he's forced to rely on his faltering instincts instead. The plot – in which the sullen Gilchrist is dispatched to Hawaii to broker a deal for his nefarious industrialist boss (Bill Murray) and ends up the object of desire for a fighter pilot (Emma Stone) and an uncomfortable reminder of past indiscretions for his ex (Rachel McAdams) – is so patchwork that it's genuinely baffling that the script was deemed fit for cameras.
As Crowe tries to unearth one of those moments that define his films (the “Tiny Dancer” sequence in Almost Famous that works in defiance of all reason), every malformed scene feels forced and every emotion wrung from the hamstrung cast rings false. From the moment that Lloyd Dobler hoisted that boombox above his head in Say Anything. Crowe's films have routinely hinged on a grand gesture that's ridiculousness is trumped by its sincerity. Tellingly, Gilchrist's overwrought defining moment – which relies on an orbiting satellite and every sound ever recorded – is epically ludicrous but, ultimately, a hollow, desperate attempt at ingratiation from both character and filmmaker.
Cameron Crowe: You lost us at Aloha.
