A Herculean achievement.

Rating: Null/10 (21 January 2011)

Martin Scorsese, long considered the greatest living American director, certainly solidified this status with three gargantuan, monstrous and epic films during the 2000s, portraying three very different time periods in American culture, all while exhibiting his fluid camera style, crisp editing and boundless creative storytelling. Perhaps of the three films, The Aviator might be the most ambitious, extravagant and compelling if only because it tells the story of a real American attempting to pursue that infamous American dream and does so in a massive way, only to lose it in the process through no fault of his own.
Howard Hughes, the most ambitious and impulsive businessman of the 20th century, is a fascinating character not just for his successes but also his failures. Very few, if any, could match his insatiable thirst for success and prestige. Scorsese captures this in nearly every scene, building up for the first 2 hours an enormous tale of lust, greed and ambition that is nothing short of astonishing to watch. This is due in equal parts to Scorsese's magnificent direction and Leonardo DiCaprio's brilliant rendition of Hughes the man.
Scorsese guides the story through nearly every major facet of Hughe's life beginning in 1927 when he is a young kid from Texas using his parents' money to make a Hollywood film, Hell's Angels. His obsessive perfection leads to the film costing nearly $4 million and three years of production. He goes on to make films such as Scarface and The Outlaw, both of which courted much controversy for their content. However, his true love was aviation, which he poured millions of dollars into to stay at the top of the game. His creations were astounding and Scorsese's recreations of such crafts as the X-11 and the Spruce Goose are nothing short of incredible.
For his personal life, Hughes hit the Hollywood jackpot by dating one star after another. Scorsese focuses on the two most important: Katherine Hepburn, his one true love, and Ava Gardner, who saw him more as a soul in need of salvation than a lover. Cate Blanchett won an Oscar for her role as Hepburn and it is something to behold; the magnificent way she embodies Hepburn's insatiable New England smugness and conceit. However, DiCaprio's status as one of the very best actors working today needs only this film to justify that statement. He is in practically every scene and owns all of them. His facial expressions, stage presence and overall body language is so perfectly sublime, subdued and structured that he does become Hughes. All Leo haters must look at his work here as something that demands great respect.
Along with Gangs of New York and The Departed, Martin Scorsese and Leonard DiCaprio created three magnificently entertaining films dealing with similar protagonists: a man tortured by his past and struggling to forge ahead in the future. This is not so unlike other Scorsese characters like Travis Bickle, Jake LaMotta or Rupert Pupkin. There is also a bit of Scorsese in Hughes' professional life. Both are obsessed with detail, focused solely on the task at hand and very successful because of this. A great tribute to a great man from a great director.