A misfire with good flying scenes

Rating: 5/10 (4 May 2008)

This seems a very odd choice of film for Martin Scorsese. The director I associate with films such as "Bringing Out the Dead" has come out with a glossy, superficial biopic which makes a hero out of a rather distasteful (racist, politically *extremely* right-wing, tax-dodging) American millionaire.
There is an element of Greek tragedy about Hughes. By the standards of our culture he was a man who had everything - wealth, power, a string of glamorous lovers - but whose character contained a fatal flaw which destroyed his entire personality. Unfortunately, despite the views of others on this site, I don't feel Leonardo Di Caprio's performance is a success, although he tries hard. He still seems too callow and youthful to play a tormented 40 year-old on the brink of insanity. (When the film was released Di Caprio said there would be nothing 'dramatic' about Hughes as a recluse living in hotel rooms. I beg to differ - the story of a madman living in isolation trying to buy the government of the United States could be fascinating.)
Even as the story of Hughes's early life the film is incomplete - his record-breaking coast-to-coast flight (which he completed without compass or radio) is missing - and sometimes inaccurate (his chief inquisitor in the Senate was Senator Homer Ferguson not Brewster himself).
The supporting cast are equally unable to capture the glamour of the real-life figures they portray. Cate Blanchett has a decent stab at Katharine Hepburn, but Kate Beckinsale's Ava Gardner is a colourless washout.
The film is saved by exhilarating flying scenes using very good quality CGI (having stood on the prow of a CGI 'Titanic', Di Caprio gets to stand in the nose of a CGI Gotha bomber). The XF-11 crash is horrifically realistic, and the flight of the Hercules a demonstration of sheer guts and will-power in getting the thing into the air.
Ultimately, though, the film lacks drama (in terms of character development and a true story arc). It is interesting and sometimes exciting to watch but doesn't go any further with the Howard Hughes story than the Tommy Lee Jones TV mini-series from the 1970's (and that was much better acted).