I am always excited to see a film about contemporary "local" Hawaiian lifestyle and culture. Haole by just the title is intriguing and even begins to explain the meaning or really how "local" Hawaiians view outsiders. The story has great characters, but doesn't seem to follow through with their development. One of the confusing things to me was the lack of consistency in how each character is portrayed. The ending was kind of like the whole movie in where you're waiting for just a little something more, but left hanging. To me this was a good attempt, but didn't quite do it.

I wanted to like this movie. It had a "real" feeling to it. Real pidgin in the dialogue. Real local actors. Real locales. Real life challenges. Is just too bad the characters had no real redeeming qualitiies. Every character was hewa at one point or another, the hero, the bully, the haole, parents, step parents, store owner, teacher, classmates, the Uncle, even the little girl. For all the Hawaiian words and phrases thrown around and the beautiful scenery, it lacked real cultural sensitivity, a real sense of connection to place and the real kuleana one would feel to act pono.