Dawn Patrol

When you think of Hawaii you think of resorts, surfing, TV shows, etc. but this movie shows you the seedy underbelly that everyone knows is there but nobody talks about. Washed up blue collar families, dead ends, petty rivalries, gangs, desperate people on the dole, too much pot and booze, and a chance to escape that never materializes.

It'd hard to watch people make bad choices but the self-destructiveness is all too understandable and while you want them to make better decisions you can see why they don't. I thought the characters, families, and plots really resonated, and were rendered with intense realism even while being far from uplifting. I thought the Hawaiian background was very true to life and not what you normally see.

While the acting was raw and amateurish I thought it was very powerful in that it depicted how real people would probably behave under the circumstances. The plot twist mentioned in the summary was a little awkward but served to give the story more meaning from a racial and equality perspective.

Overall I feel like I found a hidden gem on Netflix and am glad to have watched it.

Scott Eastwood plays John who lives in California where the sun always shines and they all just live to catch a wave because surfing is all that matters. Then there is his brother Ben who is so good that everyone wants a photo of him pushing the boundaries of mans understanding by seeing him splash about a bit in the ocean.

Enter a femme fatale who Ben is having some sort of emotionally unstable relationship with. But oh dear she has also caught the eye of the local Latino cartels' son and heir and, as in a bad film string Daniel Day Lewis, 'There will be blood'. We also have side issues of anger management, drugs and some trite story from the Iraq war.

Now this is not a bad production and there are a couple of performances of note; indeed Scott Eastwood can act – see 'The Longest Ride' but this just lacks all the essential ingredients that make a good filmatic experience. The actual script is the main failing but overly one dimensional, stereo typical characters do not help and despite the well realised plot twist I found myself just not really caring. It is not a surf film either or a thriller of really a revenge tale just a bit of a not all the believable drama. If you are still interested then go for a rental as I can guarantee you will never even consider seeing this twice.

Let's see, a bunch of unlikable characters doing unlikable things. Throw in an absurd story line, and you have a loser of a film.

There wasn't a single character I cared about or had any sympathy for, including the "hero" of the story.

Even as a "B" movie, this was bad. With so many other movies out there, please, don't waste your time on this one. Why it got made is a mystery. Why it failed so badly at the box office isn't. It got limited release in theaters, and was on disk 5 weeks later. That should tell you something. As does the 0% critic score and 9% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Need I say more?

I wanted to see this, because I wondered if Scott Eastwood was half as good as he's dad.Sadly No.OR at least not yet. The movie centers around a white-trash pot smoking surfing family,and some pothead surfers.

The two guys the movie is suppose to center around comes off as uninteresting,one dimensional and boring. They act like two immature douche bags who never grew up. (They remind me of the kids from high school, who you just knew would never really grow out of the whole life's a party phase.)

You can't really be bothered caring about them,cause there's no everyday life,there's nothing there to identify with. They surf and smoke pot,that's it! That's all they do

What was suppose to be the main plot, seem to be that this really great surfer kid,is getting killed because he mess around with an ex girlfriend,who now is dating a gang banger.

So he's older brother get into a fight for him with said gang- banger,so he's little brother can hook up with he's ex again. Than he go ahead dumps her a few days later on a party,he's mother even helps him. By this part of the movie I'd all ready stopped caring about any of them.

Jeff Fahey is suppose to be some guru, I think.You never see him surf though,only carrying a surf board The problem is there's no forward momentum in the story.You feel its just some random stuff put together.

It started out weak but wound up being really good!