Reviews

The movie itself is OK to watch, but has enough hard to swallow pills that will give nitpickers something to talk about. I won't go into specifics, but many of the key points seem improbable, really, if you think about it. Even if the story is based on a real life situation, I'm sure this is not how everything happened - it all falls into place too neatly for it to be believable.

Hawaii tries to reproduce the life in the awful days of the Romanian communist regime. It achieves that only partially, not having enough strength to imbue the scenes with the authentic feeling of anxiety that defined the era. Some of the actors do a decent job - but nothing outstanding, while others seem artificial. The story floated, barely, until the final chapter unfolded and took everything down with its silly idea and sloppy execution. The movie seemed rushed and bland, despite tapping into a rich subject.