A Striking and Ambitious Saga

Rating: 7/10 (14 January 2005)

This film is about the world famous multi-millionaire Howard Hughes. However, if the only thing you know about Hughes was that he was a recluse who secreted himself inside his hotel in Las Vegas and was obsessed with cleanliness, you may be in for a surprise. The film deals with Hughes' life before all that.
After a brief prologue showing Hughes as a child with his mother advising him on cleanliness, we move forward to 1927 with an adult Hughes (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) directing his hugely risky film "Hell's Angels". "The Aviator" takes in Hughes' film-making achievements, his romances with some of the most beautiful women of the day (including Katherine Hepburn (a superb Cate Blanchett) and Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale)) and his passion for aviation. The picture of Howard Hughes that emerges from the film is of a brilliant man who was a ruthless perfectionist, constantly risking ruin and even death for his goals. This all makes his eventual fate all the more sad.
The film is brilliantly made, the cast are all very good in their roles (especially, as mentioned earlier, Blanchett as Katherine Hepburn) and despite lasting almost three hours, it is never dull. The main flaw, however, is that you never learn much about Hughes. Some more on his background would certainly have been welcome.
Any film by Scorsese, however, is worth seeing and this is no exception.