The Aviator Movie Review

"Quarantine. Q-u-a-r-a-n-t-i-n-e. Quarantine."
-Howard Hughes

My week in Scorsese films started with Raging Bull, followed by Gangs of New York and concluded with The Aviator. Man let me tell you, I was missing out. Three great films that made me love this director's work more than I already did. My previous judgement was based on Goodfellas, The Departed, and most recently The Wolf of Wall Street. Anyway, The Aviator once again starred Leonardo DiCaprio with the company of Kate Blanchett, Kate Beckinsale, John C. Riley and a few other strong performers. Scorsese tackles and DiCaprio tackle the life of famous director and aviator Howard Hughes between the 1920's to the 1940's.

This film just reassured me that I know Leo will get his Academy Award one day because he has the raw talent for it. With the right script in the right year he will be able to pull through with the win. His performance in this film was just so strong and compelling. The movie opens up with an odd scene of a young Howard being bathed by his mother, with a strange emphasis on disease and cleanliness which foreshadows a recurring theme throughout the film. Howard Hughes is many things. Rich, famous, talented, well-educated, and a huge germaphobe! That's an aspect of the film that is more easily understood when seen though. So Howard Hughes starts of his huge career directing a film called Hell's Angels which he is able to do with his inherited wealth. He becomes obsessed with making the silent film as realistic as possible and makes some radical and dangerous decisions in the process of achieving this goal.



After years of filming and millions of dollars spent, Hell's Angels turns out be a huge hit, but he is still unhappy with the final cut and pours even more money into it to perfect it. He later went on to direct Scarface (1932) the original film to the infamous Scarface (1983) starring Al Pacino that everyone is familiar with. Eventually Howard becomes involved with an actress, Katherine Hepburn played by the very talented Kate Blanchett. The chemistry between these two is so unique because they both have very strange quirks in the film that actually work well together. Like two nut-jobs falling in love. They play off of each others talent very well and it shows. Living together helps Howard's OCD that seems to be getting worse as he gets older.

Throughout the course of the next few years Howard invests into aviation companies and breaks the record for fastest time traveled around the world, beating the old record out by three days. Despite everything else going on in his life, his passion remains aviation. But there is trouble in paradise as there usually is and his OCD progressively gets worse, really shown by his repetition of certain phrases. He later gets in a serious plane accident that takes months of recovery and worsens his psyche. There is a very intense scene where Howard locks himself away for months and undergoes this physical and mental transformation. DiCaprio does such a great job during this time and really makes you believe that this guy is completely off his rocker. I found Howard Hughes life to be so fascinating and I think it was excellently done. As we've seen film after film, Scorsese and DiCaprio are a powerful team and this film was no different. If you're willing to take out three hours of your day, this would definitely be a good movie to do it for. I give The Aviator an 8 out of 10. A movie you really want to see until the end to try to put together this mans life in your own head.

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