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It takes a pretty
attention-grabbing, action-packed movie to keep a crowd’s interest through 170 whole
minutes in uncomfortable movie theater seats. The Lord of the Rings movies could
pull it off. The Aviator, however, couldn’t.
Leonardo DiCaprio
stars in the lengthy biopic of aviator / filmmaker / womanizer / recluse Howard
Hughes—which, despite its length, only covers about 15 years of Hughes’ life, from the
late ‘20s through the early ‘40s. When the film begins, the wealthy young Hughes, who
inherited his father’s Houston tool business, has moved to California to begin his
filmmaking career, and he’s working on the film, Hell’s Angels (1930), which took
three years—and over $3 million—to produce.
As the film progresses,
viewers see Hughes’ obsessions with filmmaking, aviation, and women. Though he continues
to lose money, Hughes continues to make advances in both film and aviation—standing up to
film censorship committees and designing faster planes (which he often tested—and
crashed—himself). And though he continues to sink deeper into paranoia and
obsessive-compulsive behavior, Hughes continues to win over the biggest starlets in
Hollywood—including Jean Harlow (Gwen Stefani), Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett), and
Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale).
It’s difficult to summarize an
almost-three-hour movie in just a couple of paragraphs—and it’s especially difficult to
summarize this film, since it covers a number of areas of Hughes’ life, though very few
are covered extensively. Hughes was obviously a fascinating, multi-faceted man, and this
film tried to do too much—but ended up doing too little. In three hours, viewers are
given glimpses of Hughes’ life that are enough to pique their interest without being
enough to really explain anything. We’re given only a brief, perplexing scene from his
childhood—which, apparently, is supposed to explain his behavior. We see short scenes
with the various women in his life (most notably with Hepburn), with his enemies, with
his employees, with his planes. But after it was over, I didn’t really feel like I knew
a lot more about Howard Hughes’s life—nor did I feel that I really understood much of
it.
This film does definitely have its high points. Cate Blanchett gives
a magnificent performance as the eccentric Hepburn. Some of the aviation scenes (though
computer-generated) are breath taking and almost IMAX-like. And DiCaprio does an
impressive job in this demanding role—though I didn’t feel like he was the right man for
the job (do what you will to poor Leo, and he’ll still look like a
fourteen-year-old).
On the other hand, however, the film lacks focus. As
I said earlier, the filmmakers tried to show all of Hughes’ relationships and all of his
interests and eccentricities, making it long and jumbled and, at times, boring. Some
moments in the film were extremely quiet, making it impossible for me not to hear all the
fidgeting around me (not to mention the yawns of the guy behind me). A number of people
in the theater walked out—and the rest just fidgeted restlessly until it ended.
Had The Aviator been more focused, it could have been less
complicated—not to mention an hour shorter—and it would have been much easier to sit
through. And I can only hope that the special features on the DVD will help to tell
Hughes’ story better.
