The Aviator (2004)

Typical Hollywood film directed by Martin Scorsese depicting the life of Howard Hughes. Typical in the sense that it has the stars and the spectacular sets that Hollywood generally lavishes on its audiences. If you don't know anything about Hughes, it might be an entertaining story, and I thought so, although I don't know how much of the story is factual. Is it that important? No.

The film portrays Hughes as a champion of American ambition and a man who would let nothing compromise his efforts. His successes as a businessman, film director and aviator are counter-balanced by his personal paranoia about cleanliness. Unfortunately, this movie will appeal to aviation enthusiasts as well as an older set, one that remembers Hughes and his contributions to aviation when commercial air travel was still relatively new.

Aside from the obvious star power of the movie, which is as good a reason as any to see one, I was far from satisfied. The movie was too long, a cool 168 minutes, which is one thing that will kill any flick. Some scenes were tedious, especially a scene near the end in which Hughes, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, locks himself into his screening studio and refuses to see anyone as he fights against his paranoia.