Scorcese's Epic

Rating: 10/10 (21 February 2012)

Martin Scorsese delivers an almost three hour epic masterpiece with Leonardo Dicaprio becoming Howard Hughes, with all of his strange behavior, often funny but also tragic. The obsessive compulsive germ phobia manifested by Hughes was rooted in lectures by his mother in his early childhood.
Even with all his bizarre behavior, Hughes was a great visionary, both in aeronautics and the early days of the film industry. Genius and insanity often go hand in hand as was the case in Hughes life. In spite of his mental problems, Hughes managed to build "The Spruce Goose" a wooden airplane which was the largest aircraft ever built in the 1940s. He was truly a man ahead of his time.
His movie company enabled him to date many of early Hollywood's leading ladies. Kate Beckinsale shines as Ava Gardner, the one true love of his life. Gardner was the one person without an ulterior motive in Hughes life and the great British actress portraying her really delivers here.
Even with the length of this biography, the story is compelling from beginning to end and is a triumph of film making by Scorsese.