Lavish, Impeccably-Styled But Unexceptional Howard Hughes Biopic

Rating: 5/10 (26 April 2008)

Wealthy young industrialist Howard Hughes is a brilliant aeronautics engineer, a record-breaking pilot and a maverick independent movie producer with a string of famous lady friends. He may be the richest man in the world and seems to have it all, but happiness is ever elusive, there are powerful political forces opposing him, and he has an obsession with hygiene which threatens to crack his psyche ...
The unique Howard Hughes has been portrayed on screen several times - my favourite is Dean Stockwell in Tucker: The Man And His Dream - but this is the major treatment; an epic blockbuster Hollywood extravaganza with all the trimmings. Like all such movies it has good points and bad points - the period sets and costumes, the photography and the lavish visuals are wonderful, but it crams in so many events from Hughes' extraordinary life that it lacks atmosphere and focus, and whilst DiCaprio is fast-talking and intense he doesn't really give us much idea who the great man really was. Blanchett steals the show as Katharine Hepburn, nailing her upper-class Yankee accent perfectly and exposing both her brittle humour and her vulnerability, and there are enjoyable cameos from singer Gwen Stefani (as Jean Harlow), Jude Law (as Errol Flynn) and Scorsese alumni Dafoe as a slimy gossip columnist. There are also some great scenes; a romantic night-flight over Beverly Hills, a funny meeting with the censorship board, Hughes chewing out Hepburn's cronies at the dinner table, and an eye-popping plane crash into a pretty suburb. But we don't really learn that much about Howard aside from some basic stuff - he was rich, he was a bit deaf and he went loopy sometimes. When Hepburn breaks up with him we don't see how, or even if it really affected him, we're just onto the next amazing scene. And as with all biopics it leaves key things out; it's set between the late twenties and the late forties, but doesn't mention his first wife, Ella Rice, his addiction to painkillers, his purchase (and dissolution) of RKO Pictures, and deliberately finishes on a high note (his victory in the Congressional hearing against him and the Hercules flight) thereby leaving out his infamously bizarre and reclusive later years. A five-time Oscar-winner (AMPAS loves movies like this) and an enjoyably grandiose biopic (produced by Michael Mann), but not really one of Scorsese's best films. Not to be confused with the 1985 Christopher Reeve / Rosanna Arquette film of the same name.