Dir: Martin Scorsese. Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Alan Alda, Alec Baldwin, Kate Beckinsale, Cate Blanchett .
The Aviator is a biopic depicting the early years of legendary director and aviator Howard Hughes' career, from the late 1920's to the mid-1940's. The film chronologically covers Hughes’s flying, film-making (the infamous Hells Angles), romances and compulsions, and concludes with the first (and only) flight of his mammoth flying boat, Hercules.
Director Scorsese glorifies Hughes’s achievements and sanitises his shortcomings (his flirtation with the far-right is never mentioned). The ‘descent into madness!’ section that concentrates on Hughes’s Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is unusually restrained for a film which is otherwise pleading for academy recognition, with overblown set-pieces and saccharine romantic-subplots.
De Caprio's portrayal of Hughes is magnificent, possibly because he has more in common with brash, overachieving, young millionaires than vengeful, 19th-century Irish, knife-fighters. However, Blanchett lacks the grace and glamour to be believable as Katherine Hepburn; her bland performance would be barely adequate for portraying a victim in Casualty, nevermind one of cinema's most enduring icons.
The final-years of Hughes’s fascinating, troubled life are truncated in favour
The Aviator is created by a masterful director, with an obvious love for his subject; and at a time when computer-generated blockbusters dominate, anything character-driven is a relief. Unfortunately, watching rich-people enjoy themselves for nearly three-hours just isn't particularly entertaining.
5/10
Neil Ward.
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