This is Hollywood 1927 and the young Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio) is directing his film “Hells Angels”. Three years and multi-million dollars later, the first (albeit ridiculous) ‘sound film’ is released, along with exposing this aviation visionary’s obsessive-compulsive behavior and his inability to take no for an answer from his right hand man and confident Noah (John C. Reilly). Around this time we also meet Errol Flynn (Jude Law) and learn of Hughes’s long time playboy behavior including two special lovers, Katherine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) and Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale). DiCaprio, re-teaming with “Gangs Of New York” director Martin Scorsese, yet DiCaprio’s performance feels like a seventeen year old boy trying to play a grownup, but manages to age just enough three quarters through the film, when his paranoia/seclusion kicks in. Blanchett is amusing as Hepburn but comes across feeling more like she’s impersonating the star rather then acting her. Beckinsale may be lovely to look at as Garner, but her acting is so paper thin, we fear if the wind blows, it may knock her over. Alec Baldwin does a fine job portraying a competitive TWA mogul monopolizing the airlines, that Hughes would eventually change with a little company called Pan Am, and Alan Alda is well cast as a government agent investigating Hughes’s spending and possible tax fraud. Unlike most Scorsese movies, this one has zero violence yet will probably be the one to earn him the long-overdue Oscar for best director.
