‘The Wind & the Reckoning’ Review: A Hawaiian Story of Resistance

It’s a narrative as outdated because the United States itself: American enterprise pursuits drive white males onto Indigenous lands, the place they displace and impose their very own rule of legislation on an in any other case sovereign group of individuals. The docudrama “The Wind & The Reckoning,” directed by David L. Cunningham, tells the true story of a gaggle of Native Hawaiians who resisted the government-mandated exile carried out to deal with a leprosy outbreak in Hawaii within the late 1800s. A provisional authorities, put in place after American businessmen overthrew Queen Lili’uokalani and dissolved the Kingdom of Hawai’i, compelled Natives suspected of an infection onto the island of Moloka’i. There, marriages have been now not acknowledged, and hundreds died and have been buried in unmarked graves.

“The Wind & The Reckoning” follows Pi’ilani (Lindsay Marie Anuhea Watson), her husband, Ko’olau (Jason Scott Lee), and their son, Kalei (Kahiau Perreira), as they combat to remain collectively after the latter two are contaminated. As Pi’ilani, who by no means contracts leprosy, says in a voice-over, “No man, no government could break the bonds of marriage and family.”

Sadly, the movie doesn’t carry the emotional punch that the subject material warrants. “The Wind & The Reckoning” is centered on gunfights between Ko’olau and the troopers, and one would have preferred to get a way of the broader world exterior of this battle — the folks within the leprosy colony, for example, or the political turmoil of the time. The story feels too self-contained and the characters too one-note, which, regardless of the deserves of the topic, makes it arduous to really feel immersed of their world.

The Wind & the Reckoning
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters.