So, against my better judgement, I'm becoming quite fond of Hawaii Five-0. I'd say ninety percent of that enthusiasm can be sourced to Scott Caan's character who is fast-talking, sour and affectionate, a man displaced to Hawaii by his overwhelming love for his daughter and stuck with a partner whose tactics he hates (and sometimes thinks are unethical) because he was investigating the murder of said partner's father. It's a role that brings out strengths Caan has show in other movies, the abrasive redneck from the Ocean's 11 movies (A side note, does anyone love the subplot with them leading a strike of Mexican dice-factory workers in the third movie? Because I so do.), the sourness of his perv in Friends With Money and leavens it with something genuine and true and lovely.
Much of the rest of the show is a genial mess. Alex O'Laughlin is dull. Daniel Dae Kim is, so far I fear, a bit self-righteous. The idea that Hawaii is a hive of dangerous criminal activity seems a bit overwrought. But it's all sort of excusable.
The one place I'm finding myself a little uncomfortable is in the way the show's handling Grace Park's Kono. Her integration into the unit, her understanding of what it means to be a cop, all fine and well-done. But the show, through its first two episodes, seems to be taking a slightly unseemly pleasure in putting her in physical danger and in watching her attacked and beaten. She always fights back just fine, but the show makes much of the fact that she's a sexy object of violence, putting her in danger in a thin cotton dress in character as a Chinese immigrant, or in a catfight with a dangerous woman who is not who she appears to be. I'm not saying there's no feminist pleasure to be had in her strength and competence, or that the show would be better if she were constantly rescued by her male colleagues. But there's something distasteful in putting her body out there as an object of violence in disproportion to the dudes she works with, even if she consistently gets herself out of trouble. Finding another way to sexualize the show's attractive woman, particularly by lacing that gaze with violence, is no victory for female action heroes. One can only hope it won't become a habit.