Enthralling movie

Rating: 8/10 (4 November 2010)

This is a great movie. I think I probably enjoyed it more because I did not know two things - (1) I didn't know much about Howard Hughes and (2) I didn't know that Martin Scorsese directed the movie.
The acting by Leonardo diCaprio in the lead role is fantastic. He is a very good actor and totally dominates this movie. The only guy that comes close to him is Alec Baldwin as the boss of PanAm.
Scorsese very cleverly weaves in some hints about Howard Hughes' mental problems early on in the movie, including what appears to be obsessive compulsive disorder. It was quite remarkable that a person with such health problems was able to achieve so much.
There are some excellent scenes in the movie. The lunch scene with Katherine Hepburn and her family is very memorable as is the scene before the Congressional committee. There are also some humorous scenes such as his defence of Jane Russell's mammaries in the movie The Outlaw.
While the movie is quite long, I would have liked to see the movie continue to the end of his life. However, from what I understand of Howard Hughes' later years, it may have been quite difficult to film given how erratic his behaviour became.