The Aviator

What’s the Story?

THE AVIATOR chronicles the life of Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio), the man who produced era-defining movies, dated the world's biggest movie stars (Katharine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, Jean Harlow), founded an airline (TWA), owned seven Las Vegas casinos, designed and test-piloted airplanes, risked fortunes and made bigger ones, and died as a recluse, the prisoner of illness and of the greedy people around him who did whatever he said instead of insisting he get help. Hughes assembles the world's largest private air force to make a movie, designs and flies experimental airplanes, gets trapped in the men's room because he can't bear to touch the germ-covered doorknob, and take on the most formidable of opponents from Katharine Hepburn's family to the movie rating board and Maine's corrupt senator.

Is It Any Good?

A true story that is both touching and thrilling and tons of talent on both sides of the camera are enough to make this a good movie, but not enough to make it a great one. Hughes' larger-than-life story could easily fill six movies, so even this energetic and muscular three-hour-epic feel like it's just skimming the surface. There is no way to try to cover even this one section of Hughes' life without making it feel like a "greatest hits" clip job instead of a story with a real narrative arc. And it never rises from incident to insight.

The second problem is Leonardo DiCaprio, a brilliantly gifted actor but here his squint, tics, and accent make Hughes seems more like a kid struggling with ADD than the tortured larger-than-life. But no one does pageantry better than Scorcese and this is a brilliant film, even with its flaws. Cate Blanchett brings Katherine Hepburn to life. Kate Beckinsdale is adequate as Ava Gardner. The crash scene is bone-chillingly harrowing and the scenes of old-time Hollywood reflect the director's deep love of that era. Like the life it depicts, it is uneven and fascinating.