The Aviator
Literally starting out from nuts and bolts, Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio) decides to combine his love for aviation with filmmaking to create the most expensive film ever, necessitating the use of 26 cameras and all with sound. It's mainly a success but as his aviation empire grew sky high (buying TWA and building his own large aircraft while breaking speed records), his mental ability began to reach its limits. The women who found him irresistible before now began to leave him including Katherine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) and Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale). Soon, hygiene was important to Hughes as obsessive compulsive disorder came to control his life. Lawmakers found this to be the perfect time to break his empire and soon used his whole life against him. But in the end, Hughes had always found the strength to fight.

Hughes' life is very interesting, both through the highs and lows. The aviation scenes can, at times, be exhilarating. DiCaprio's performance is a sight to see as he displays the energy of a young kid when he's sitting in the cockpit of a plane or when he's going crazy watching his movie in his private theatre with bottles of urine right next to him. The story itself however seems inconsistent, especially the rousing confrontation Hughes has in front of the Senate, which seems so out-of-place from what we see just before and after. While it seems director Marin Scorsese could have put even more material into the already 3-hour film, cutting some of the less-than-rousing TWA/Pan Am fighting would have been ideal. Right now, it's merely a fine film with a great performance by DiCaprio. 3 stars