The Aviator

Howard Hughes (Leonardo Di Caprio) had made his money from oil and was obsessed with aviation. Pumping a great deal of his money into that still fairly embryonic industry, he designs his own outwardly more outlandish aircraft that push the boundaries of size and capacity - all against a scepticism from his investors and even his closest friends like Dietrich (John C. Reilly not Marlene). He sees a vision for international flying that inspires the expansion of TWA and that earns him the enmity of rival Pan Am owner Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin) who drafts in his senatorial bloodhound Brewster (Alan Alda) to accuse Hughes of wartime profiteering and corruption. Meantime, his personal life is only marginally less turbulent with affairs with Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) and then Ava Gardner (Kate Beckisale) adding a certain spice to his life and to these colourful proceedings. For me, the film comes most alive with the congressional spats between Di Caprio and an on-form Alda for that's where I felt the writing showed Hughes at his most robustly defiant. Blanchett doesn't so much play Hepburn as mimic her, right down to that instantly recognisable drawl of her's, and she does it well; Ian Holm also delivers entertainingly as the constantly puzzled Professor Fritz and there is an whole slew of familiar faces playing even more familiar faces - like Jude Law's go at Errol Flynn and Gwen Stefani's lively Jean Harlow. Added to the stunning production design that makes sensibly sparing use of CGI - sometimes mirroring what it could actually have been used for had it been around in the 1930s and 40s, and some seriously creative effort from the costumiers, this film not only depicts a life of a flawed man with huge ambitions (yet a terror of the smallest germs) but also serves to show us a little of the industrial and social development of the United States both before and after World War II. In many ways, for all his flamboyance Hughes comes across here as quite a vulnerable and flaky man, and that's a testament to an actor who seems to have absorbed as many facts and public speculations about this renowned billionaire as he could, but who has also imbued his own characterisation with some quirky character traits that humanise him to the extent that you very often find yourself feeling a little pity for a man for whom happiness was always around another corner. It's not a documentary, nor trying to be one, so there are events contrived for cinematic effect and others left out completely here - but it's three hours just flew by and at the end of part one of his life, I was hoping that Scorsese et al would come back with a part two - that wasn't exactly dull, either!