Tedious at Times

Rating: 7/10 (17 March 2005)

Despite the hype attached to this picture, the Motion Picture Academy made the right decision for once in awarding best picture to "Million Dollar Baby" and best director to Clint Eastwood. "The Aviator" is certainly cinematic. All the major roles are exceptionally well acted. The film's weakness lies in the direction and editing. The picture drags in a number of places, particularly in the scenes intended to show that Howard Hughes is one weird fellow. The idea could have been conveyed equally well with fewer scenes and considerably less footage. I have to wonder whether the movie would have been equally interesting if it were fiction instead of biography populated with figures like Hughes himself, Katherine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, Juan Trippe (who ran Pan Am), Senator Owen Brewster of Maine and Noah Dietrich, Hughes' principal aide, not to mention more minor figures (for purposes of the picture) like Jean Harlow, Louis B. Mayer, Errol Flynn. My guess is that it would not have been half as interesting as pure fiction. Part of the charm is watching actors like DiCaprio, Blanchette, Beckinsale, Baldwin, Alda, and Reilly impersonate real people that I personally remember. My bottom line: Martin Scorcese fumbled this by being overly preoccupied with the pictorial elements and insufficiently ruthless in the editing process.