not best picture material

Rating: 7/10 (30 December 2004)

Since this got a lot of award nominations, I thought it would be better. It was OK, but too long. There is so much to tell about Howard Hughes; you can't do it in one film. And this movie stops when he was still fairly young. We don't see him in his later years when he was really nuts.
The lesson to this movie, if you let unstable people have a bunch of money, then they are going to do some crazy things. Hughes throws money around to build his dream planes and to make movies that aren't very good. According to this movie, his biggest enemy was Pan-Am, who was trying to keep TWA from flying overseas.
Also, the movie shows a lot of his girlfriends, many of whom were famous actresses. It never dwells to deep into his personal relationships though. I'm sure there were many more interesting things about them.
FINAL VEDICT: It was OK, not great. And we learn Hughes sure loved his bar of soap. If you're into biographies then you'd probably like it; otherwise, I would skip it. Also Leo is sort of hot in this, but they have to make him look crazy in some parts. So, it isn't the best film to Leo watch.