Interesting movie that just suddenly ends...

Rating: 7/10 (1 January 2005)

Interesting biographical film portraying the early, highly successful years of Howard Hughes before his problems with obsessive compulsive disorder destroyed his mind. The film does a great job of portraying Hughes passion for aviation. You get a very strong impression of his energy and ambition and how it made him so successful. One great scene is where Hughes has dinner with Katherine Hepburn's family. All parties at the table are rich with no need to work again but the contrast could not be greater between Hughes' unrelenting ambition to work and and further aviation in general and the Hepburn family's lifestyle of perpetual relaxation.
The problem is that the film doesn't seem to go anywhere and the ending is very unsatisfying. The film shows Hughes' rise to power, how he flouted all popular conventions of common sense and won, how he built up his business and how he positioned TWA airlines to become a world class airline. But then, just when he appears to have won in his quest to build an international airline, his personal OCD problems take hold, leaving his future in doubt. The film all of a sudden ends at this point and there's no explanation for what followed.
From the way the movie ends, it seems to imply that if OCD hadn't taken hold of him, Hughes would have become one of the most powerful men in the airline industry worldwide as the owner of an international class airline and as a builder and supplier of military aircraft. It almost seems to imply that his OCD is the reason the "Spruce Goose" never became a success. Unfortunately, it's only an implication and no real explanation is provided.
The acting was pretty good throughout. I thought Leonardo DiCaprio was excellent as Hughes and Cate Blanchett does a great Katherine Hepburn. Overall, pretty good but not quite best picture quality. 7/10