Grade: B+

Rating: Null/10 (21 December 2004)

Leonardo DiCaprio IS Howard Hughes in the piece that should finally win Martin Scorsese that elusive Best Director Oscar.
Hughes biopics have been floating around Hollywood for decades. And no wonder - the story of Howard Hughes is an excellent example of the American dream being followed through to its conclusion. Tremendous, unprecedented power, fame, success, and wealth, followed by a massive, nearly unprecedented crash-and-burn. What could be more quintessentially American? Of course directors and producers have been scrambling all over each other to be the first to put a summation of Hughes' life on screen. A competing project starring Jim Carrey and directed by Christopher Nolan has been rumored for some time, in fact. But Scorsese got his out first, and I can't imagine that Nolan's film could possibly be any better.
For the uninitiated, Howard Hughes was one of the great eccentric geniuses of this century. He was a film producer and director, an engineer, a pilot, a hotelier, and a crazy, crazy man. He ended his life in the suite of his Las Vegas hotel, which he hadn't left in twenty years. By that time, he was receiving daily blood transfusions from Mormons, who he believed were the only clean people in the world. He was no longer trimming his fingernails or cutting his hair or beard. He wore tissue boxes on his feet, and a surgical mask at almost all times. Terrified of germs, Hughes barricaded himself in his hotel and died there alone, sad, and insane. This would seem to me to be the most interesting part of Hughes' life to film - watching his madness devour him alive.
But no - Scorsese made the choice of allowing us to see Hughes in his younger, more vibrant days, and allowing us to watch the madness creep up on him instead.
The film opens as Hughes is filming "Hell's Angels", now nearly universally lauded as a masterpiece. He's throwing money at it hand over fist, but it's a passion, so he doesn't care. Genius or insanity?That's what Scorsese and DiCaprio bring across more than anything else here - the line between the two is so thin, it can be invisible in some cases. It certainly was with Hughes.
Eventually, Hughes gets into the airline business, founding TWA. He gets into a streetfight with PanAm, in the person of PanAm president Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin, enjoying being the bad guy) over who has the right to global flights. In between all the corporate and political intrigue, Hughes finds the time to fall madly in love with fellow outsider Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett), and to dally with Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale). All along, Hughes struggles with his obsessive-compulsive tendencies, his most heroic moment coming when he overcomes his agoraphobia in order to testify before Congress (represented in the person of Senator Ralph Owen Brewster, a snarky Alan Alda) and save his company.
Leonardo DiCaprio is the true savior of this movie, and Scorsese deserves credit just for getting out of his way. This is DiCaprio's chance to grow up as an actor, and he takes it and runs with it. It's difficult for a star of his caliber to be anything but Leo on screen, but he succeeds more than admirably in making you see Hughes instead of the movie star. He even comes to actually physically resemble the fortyish Hughes, a remarkable feat for a babyfaced thirty year old. It's a terrific performance, and one that should garnish Leo an Oscar nomination.
Also notable is Cate Blanchett's Katharine Hepburn - her performance is jarring at first, seemingly over-the-top, but once you settle in and realize that that's really how Hepburn WAS, it becomes fascinating. Her relationship with Hughes is heartbreaking. It's a case of two Hollywood outsiders who can't get past each other's eccentricities - a great romance cut short by neurosis. To me, the segment of the movie that examines their relationship is the best part of the film.
Overall, it's a slick and good-looking film, which is almost enough to get you past its shallowness. But DiCaprio and Blanchett are both wonderful.