Scorsese homages Old Hollywood and DiCaprio is recognized at last

Rating: 8/10 (12 February 2005)

OK,this movie is not a masterpiece,but i can't see the reasons many people give to dislike this movie.Its length??The usual length of all Scorsese's movies.The character identification with the audience??I've never was identified with Travis Bickle or Jake Lamotta.The movie is perfect in every single shot.The editing,the scenes design,all is really perfect.Howard Hughes was a spoiled rich man that defied the great American power(Scorsese criticizes again the American corruption beyond the eyes of an outsider and extravagant rich man).Cate Blanchett is perfect as Katharine Hepburn.At the beginning of the movie i was terrified (i thought his performance was going to be caricaturesque) but at the end i understood the kindness and the nerve of the greatest of all the Hollywood stars in Blanchet's face.Leonardo DiCaprio was a child phenomenon;an underrated actor because people ignores his first movies(This Boy's Life ,What's Eating Gilbert Grape? ,or his Rimbaud portrayal in Total Ecplise) in which he did everything (drug addict, revolutionary and evil poet, mentally retarded ,etc...).With the fame of this movie and his second Oscar nomination,the Titanic stigma disappear at last.No one could deny that his the great actor of his generation.(and better than Pitt ,Cruise and the rest of the pretty boys(except,may be,Johnny Depp or Ewan McGregor whom are great actors).I'm glad for Leo.Scorsese homages Old Hollywood style with nerve and precision:Citizen Kane,The Philadelphia Story(Hepburn's family), Bringing up Baby or his own Raging Bull are revisited in this film. This movie is entertaining and original.It tells the story of a man and his own demons inside of him.May it's a very long movie (a few minutes less and it would be a masterpiece) ,but is a movie that will achieve greatness with the passage of time.I'm sure of that.