A Disinterested Scorsese

Rating: 5/10 (9 January 2005)

Martin Scorsese's biography of Howard Hughes' most productive years is distressingly impersonal and while any Scorsese is better than no Scorsese, "The Aviator" has the feel of a debt being repaid to Miramax for making "Gangs Of New York". His commitment seems so low-level that what used to be a deliciously rigorous style here seems reduced to a series of trick shots that have less to do with burnishing an impression than with going through the motions of creating something merely impressive. The only time Scorsese appears engaged is in the first third in which Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio) directs the aviation picture "Hell's Angels" and then tussles with censors with a frenzy reminiscent of the director himself. The rest of the film evolves into a "movie" movie with real characters portrayed by actors who act as if they're in a movie (particularly Oscar-baiting Cate Blanchett, as Katherine Hepburn, who appears to have watched "The Philadelphia Story" one too many times). It takes DiCaprio almost two-thirds of the picture to discover Hughes but he finally does as he ages into a deeply troubled hermit who still can muster the courage to vanquish the foes, Senator Ralph Owen Brewster (a very good Alan Alda) and Pan Am head Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin), who have conspired to break him. In Hughes' later years, DiCaprio bears a definite resemblance to him, but it's also at this point that he bears a striking resemblance to the young Orson Welles, which further connects to the film's thematic links—-and, it would appear, Scorsese's way of passing the time for most of the film—-to "Citizen Kane": John Logan's workman, easy-solution script (he blames Hughes' mother) attempts to portray him as a rich kid whose upbringing has traumatized him into an obsessive who lives to control the lives around him; and I swear Howard Shore's score seems at times to purloin Bernard Herrmann's. All that seems to be missing is Rosebud. Entertaining and over-sized but not particularly memorable—-you get the sense it started receding from Scorsese's memory after the premiere.