"Citizen Kane" light

Rating: 9/10 (6 June 2005)

Billionaire entrepreneur,raconteur and legend Hoawrd Hughes led two lives. One,as a handsome,charismatic young dreamer who was able to spin gold out of straw,creating planes that worked and movies that sold. The other was the OCD-hobbled eccentric who furiously bucked the system he also wanted to serve. The bridge between these two is explored in Martin Scorcese's nearly three hour long epic.
Leonard DiCaprio's Hughes makes up for a physical lack of authenticity(he stays fairly boyish looking through two decades of change,including after surviving a life-threatening plane crash!)by being able to commit to the passion and affliction that was Howard. His willingness to sacrifice his body and portray a mental illness that is somewhat difficult to encapsulate is nothing short of remarkable.
HAving said that,probably the real standout here was CAte Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn. I suppose it betrays a lack of movie sophistication to admire an actor for their ability to mimic a real celebrity(and my familiarity with KAte may not be THE best) but it's still hard to forget ones that are dead-on(Val Kilmer's Jim Morrison comes to mind)and Blanchet's KAte Hepburn is just that! Her vocal cadence,speed of talking and her general demeanor of defiance seemed to so mark Miss Hepburn's persona. She is a unique person for her era and she is very aware of it,and her being different is at least in part why she can recognize and love Howard for his quirks and style.
The heavies are a senator from Maine(Alan Alda,very good here)and the President and CEO of Pan-Am Airlines(Alec Baldwin,not especially memorable but still serviceable),the latter having the former in his deep,influential pockets. The tricks that they play on Hoawrd's state of mental health SEEM minor,but are actually quite insidious and snide(e.g.blowing cigar smoke his direction,leaving fingerprints on his drinking glass,serving food bloody and rare).
The rest of the cast rounds out nicely with John C. Reilly(as NOah Dietrich,Howard's longtime bookkeeper and friend),Adam Scott(as JOhnny,Howard's longtime associate and confidant),KAte Beckingsale(as Ava GArdener,who also had a short and tempestuous affair with Mr.HUghes),Gwen Stefani(appropriate as Jean HArlow),MAtt Ross,Kelli Garner,and Brent Spiner. Cameos by Jude Law and Willem DaFoe catch the eye but have only small impact on the film.
While I cannot quite call this film a classic,it is still a very worthy movie to watch,especially if you are interested in 20th-Century American history and the impact of celebrity has on it. Also,Mr.Hughes' life is very fascinating,IMHO. The title line of my review isn't to say that I believe that Mr. Hughes and C.F.Kane's(proxy to W.R.Hearst) life stories are direct parallels,but that the aim of both movies seems to be the same. Namely,the documenting of a great,brilliant man whose sense of ego and frailty become to(greater or lesser degrees)his undoing. While lacking full originality,either in subject or approach, it still is able to evoke interest and personality,which makes the awards it was nominated for(And the relative few that it won)quite deserving.