Sort of like watching a turtle on its back

Rating: 1/10 (16 February 2005)

Knowing quite a bit about Howard Hughes, I expected to see a movie chronicling his minimal exploits in movie-making and his greater exploits as an aviator and a capitalist who built an airline and an aircraft corporation, took on a senate investigating committee and won, and, oh yes, bedded the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood. (NOTE: I was amazed to see that in casting this movie they could find no actresses who could do justice to the beauty of Jean Harlow, Ava Gardner, or even Faith Domergue. That may sound shallow, but beauty is what it was all about. I'll give a grudging pass to Cate Blanchett because of her superb acting. Besides, who ever had the regal beauty of Katherine Hepburne). Back to Hughes: the other interesting fact about Hughes is that at the end of his life he was destroyed by a mental illness we now refer to as obsessive/compulsive disorder. However, few of Hughes' biographers mention the OCD as a significant factor in Hughes' life prior to the late 1950's which is well beyond the time frame of this movie.
To my surprise, the movie was about little other than his OCD which, according to Scorsese, was the driving force behind almost everything Hughes did. I could have lived with that, except for the way it was presented. Poor Leo DeCaprio was forced to spend most of the movie looking as if he had just eaten something nasty. I guess that's what OCD does to you according to Scorsese. In painfully long scenes, DeCaprio would stand unable to function while the camera allowed us to stare at him. It was like watching a turtle on its back trying desperately to right itself.
People all over the theater were holding up their arms, apparently trying to check their watches as we passed the two-hour mark, and a few gave up and left early. Unfortunately, my curiosity overcame my discomfort and I stayed to the bitter end.
Howard Hughes was a much more interesting and complex man than this movie reveals, and his accomplishments were much greater than one would realize from the manner in which they are presented in "The Aviator".
Leo is not the right man for this role  he just isn't able to radiate the power, self-confidence, and even arrogance of Howard Hughes. Scorsese's Hughes comes off as a victim taking apparently stupid risks because of a mental affliction which in real life he had not yet acquired.