anohito

The bad: it isn't a very good movie. The script was pretty weak for the first half of the movie and the lead actor, Ryan Greer, lacked emotional variety and transparency. He walked around looking vaguely petulant for most of the movie. There were better actors in the movie, but the whole thing rested on Greer's sulky shoulders.

The good: this is the most realistic depiction of people and life on Oahu I've ever seen. The dialogue was exactly right. Compare the cartoonish pidgin in other films and TV shows with this. This is what people in Honolulu sound like. The art direction in general was fantastic: the clothes, the hair, the locations, the culture in general. The types were recognizable to anyone who's lived there. All that was missing was a visit to Longs Drugs. Hell, they even had a loco moco.

The cast: Aside from Greer, some of the other performances were pretty good. Nalu Boersma was completely believable as the sleazy drug-dealer and gambler; I hope he gets more work. Jolene Blaylock, the sexy Vulcan from Enterprise, is unrecognizable as Alea's pathetic, tawdry-looking mom; too bad she didn't get more screen time. Julia Nickson-Soul was a pleasant surprise playing an unglamorous middle-class mom and postal worker. The recycling moke in the blue t-shirt (didn't catch his name) had some real presence, despite his small role. The weird "Vegas Mike" guy brought some energy to the screen as well.

Finally, if you can get through the first two-thirds of the movie, the last third gets unexpectedly tense. It doesn't quite make up for the rest of the movie, but it's good.

This movie is well-intentioned but as sentimental as a Hallmark card. The characters were two-dimensional; skilled actors like Masatoshi Nakamura and Gary Cole were given little depth to work with. The father: noble and proud. The mother: quiet and worried. Two brothers? You just know one is going to be a rebel and the other will make a predictable decision to prove his loyalty to America. Most of the story is hackneyed and corny. Farewell to Manzanar with Nobu McCarthy is from 1976, but it's miles ahead of this movie. Come See the Paradise, despite its White main character, is better than this too. It might be that I'm overly-familiar with internment camp movies, but I swear I've seen nearly all of these characters done better elsewhere in other movies and plays.

But it isn't all bad. The best moments come from a wily old man played by Seth Sakai who makes booze from canned peaches. His lines crackle with a sarcastic wit that is greatly needed to counterbalance the sentimentality of the other characters. The baseball scenes near the end are interesting and original, but aren't nearly enough to save this movie. American Pastime might be useful for educating kids about the camps, but it doesn't stand on its own cinematic merits.

Hey, LuckyStar, I just watched this movie and saw the name of the actor who played the "Bush Assassin." His name is Jim Newman.

As a Seattlite, I really liked seeing all the familiar settings, like the Seattle Asian Art Museum, Gasworks Park, Smith Tower, and others.

The lack of plot and dramatic tension limited my ability to enjoy this, but I found the main character to be interesting, complex, surprising, and occasionally very funny. Also, some of those bizarre crime episodes were pretty entertaining, as some of you have already said.

I can't recommend this to film-goers who require a compelling plot, but if you like an original character study, give it a shot.