One of Scorcese's Very Best Works; Ten out of Ten

Rating: 10/10 (5 September 2015)

This is the first Scorsese film I ever saw. It is also, with the admission that I have not seen anything close to all his films, one of his greatest. At over two and a half hours long, it is a sprawling epic through the rise and fall of one of the era's biggest personalities. Yet it seems quick, much like some of the airplanes Hughes sought to build. Not short in any way, shape, or form. But quick. It doesn't lag. It doesn't linger too long.
Martin Scorsese, managing to not show any signs of slowing down even after all those decades of filmmaking, has developed such an intuition for film that it makes this film look like it itself has an intuition. Every time it needs to stay on a moment, it stays. Every time it needs to whip through time, it does so properly (you'd think this one would be simple, but it can be done great (this), well (most films), or badly (the first thing that jumped into my head was The Notebook, which jumped across the one big event during its timespan (WWII) in about five minutes)). When it lifts you up, you feel like you are flying. And when it takes a turn for the emotionally disturbing, you feel like your spirit crashed. This is a film that gave me the feeling that it knew exactly what it was doing and that never let me down.
By the way, is it just me, or is 2004 an underrated year for film? Both this film and the last one that I reviewed (HP:PoA) were made in that year. As were The Incredibles, Million Dollar Baby, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. All five of these films have passed into the category of 'If you don't like this film, your taste leaves something to be desired.' Four of them (sorry Million Dollar Baby, I really like you but I don't love you) are in my top 100 films of all time.
'Twas a quite competitive year indeed. Yet I do believe that in many respects, this film tops it. While it is not my favorite film of the year (that would be ESotSM), it is the film that I believe should have won best picture that year. If there is one movie that best represented achievements in cinema in this year, it is this movie.
As a fan of aviation, I had heard of Howard Hughes. I knew a general outline of his life. But my prior knowledge was naught but a skeleton compared to what I now know. I do believe that I am one of the best arguments against those who say that film cannot educate you about the physical world about us. I have learned far more about the world and the people in it from films and articles than I ever did from school. to quote Mark Twain, "I have never let school interfere with my education." All this is a roundabout way of saying that this film paints in your mind a stylish picture of Hughes' life that both rings true and resonant.
I am surprised that there had never been a good biopic of Hughes before this. Given how eventful his life was, it wouldn't be hard. And given his contributions to film, I'm surprised Hollywood hadn't taken an opportunity to once more pat themselves on the back. He is one of the truest examples of the eccentric, popular, multi-talented, billionaires that make the first few decades of the 20th century some of my favorite in all of history and that are so noticeably absent from the world today. And I would argue that few people made more of an impact on this time period than Howard Hughes.
This film shows that. The brash young Texan goes into movies and aviation and... a lot more.This is the first sentence of his Wikipedia page: Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. (December 24, 1905 â€“ April 5, 1976) was an American business tycoon, entrepreneur, investor, aviator, aerospace engineer, inventor, filmmaker and philanthropist. He was a man of high highs and low lows, and there is no one better to show these complexities than the man I consider to be the greatest actor of his generation, Leo DiCaprio. As a fan of Leo and of Hughes, I was hoping that he would deliver. And he did. While I think that he should have an Oscar or two by now for various roles, he is at his absolute best here. I would even argue that it is one of the ten or fifteen greatest performances ever filmed.
You may notice on that Wikipedia description that he did not die until 1976. This film does not show him in his last few decades of life, usual for a biopic. There is a reason for that. With disabling OCD and without proper medication, Hughes went... well, insane.
This film handles that, like everything else, very well. It shows his descent into darkness in startling detail, filming it in such a way that one could not think anything but that he was going insane. Many films would have shyed away from this. Others would have exploited it. Not the crack team of Scorsese/DiCaprio. You get the feeling that you are in cold but unmaleficent hands. What is shown is exactly what needs to be shown for purpose's sake. Nothing more or less.
Watching the film again, I almost wanted Hughes to die in the plane crash so he wouldn't be subjected to torment. But it wasn't a simple feeling. Rather, it was a complex, fully realized one. Not that many movies back me feel that way. Like its subject, it is one of a kind.