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THE AVIATOR by Tom McCurrie
You'd think a story about a super-rich industrialist with a penchant for starlets and a horror for germs wouldn't be a natural fit for the silver screen. But actor Leonardo DiCaprio and director Martin Scorsese have turned the early years of real-life eccentric Howard Hughes into one of the best films of the year -- THE AVIATOR.
Crisply written by John Logan, THE AVIATOR begins in 1927, with Hughes filming the biggest movie ever, HELL'S ANGELS, at the ripe old age of twenty-one, and ends in 1947, with Hughes promising to get the biggest plane ever, "The Spruce Goose," off the ground or leave the country for good. In between, he battles to save his empire as Pan American Airways attempts to put the Hughes-owned TWA out of business with the help of a bought-and-paid-for Senator.
A quick glance at the synopsis shows that Hughes was one rich guy who didn't sit around counting his money. And that's the key to Hughes' appeal as a protagonist. He's the type of character audiences like, the Big Dreamer. It's never about the money with Hughes; it's about pushing the limits of human potential, about achieving the impossible, about being the best, whether it be the best pilot, the best filmmaker, or the best airline. People are inspired by this, and that makes for a strong rooting interest in your hero, especially when said hero not only has to overcome Pan Am to achieve his dreams, but also a crippling obsessive-compulsive disorder that makes Tony Shalhoub's twitchy behavior on MONK look positively sedate. Anyone who maintains a Gung-Ho attitude in the face of such obstacles can't help but win us over.
The performances win us over, too. Now I was never much of a Leo DiCaprio fan. After a notable performance in WHAT'S EATING GILBERT GRAPE? (1993), DiCaprio seemed to go from movie to movie coasting on his matinee-idol looks. But though he's no dead-ringer for Hughes, Leo aces the mogul in an Oscar-worthy performance, capturing his drive for success, his mania for women, and his horrifying descent into mental illness. The supporting players are equally splendid. As Hughes paramour Katherine Hepburn, Cate Blanchett doesn't so much give a performance as channel the late actress' ghost. And as far as the villains go, Alec Baldwin scores as Hughes' silky nemesis at Pan Am, Juan Trippe, while Alan Alda is superb as the two-faced Senator in Trippe's pocket.
Then there's Martin Scorsese's direction, certainly his best work since GOODFELLAS. It takes a master to make an almost three-hour movie fly by as quickly as one of Hughes' airplanes, and Scorsese's energetic helming does that and then some. (Somebody finally give this guy a directing Oscar!) Not only does he pull expert performances from his cast, he recreates a bygone Los Angeles (late 20s-late 40s) so convincingly that you think you're having cocktails at the Coconut Grove with Louis B. Mayer yourself. And who would've thought that Scorsese could direct action as well as Renny Harlin or John McTiernan? Hughes crashing his test plane into a Beverly Hills neighborhood will go down as one of the most thrilling action set-pieces in recent memory.
Unfortunately, THE AVIATOR isn't perfect. Though Logan delivers plenty of crackling dialogue, he stints on character motivation. True, the script adroitly links Hughes' obsessive-compulsive behavior to his over-protective mother, but we never truly understand what drives Hughes' need to do everything bigger and better than everybody else. In 1964's THE CARPETBAGGERS, a thinly-fictionalized take on Hughes' life, lead character Jonas Cord (George Peppard) is afraid he'll succumb to the mental illness that claimed his brother, so he manically strives for success like there's no tomorrow. Though we sympathize with Hughes' struggle to master his demons in THE AVIATOR, we're left with a psychological hole at the center of this man that undercuts his appeal.
There's also the question of theme. In his book THE PLOT THICKENS, Noah Lukeman states the best screenplays have a transcendent quality about them, something that's timeless, that speaks across the generations. But THE AVIATOR seems to have no larger point than to say, "What a fascinating life this fascinating guy had." That's not enough to make a movie memorable, at least not in the long term. Now a theme doesn't have to be overly-complicated. After all, CITIZEN KANE, considered by many to be the greatest movie of all time, has one simple message -- Money Doesn't Buy Happiness. Because it lacks that central, galvanizing theme, THE AVIATOR fails to achieve that transcendence.
But in a disappointing year for American cinema, a near-classic is something to be cherished, not vilified. When THE AVIATOR comes to a theatre near you, see it.
Responses, comments and general two-cents worth can be E-mailed to gillis662000@yahoo.com.
(Note: For all those who missed my past reviews, they're archived on Hollywoodlitsales.com. Just click the link on the main page and it'll take you to the Inner Sanctum. Love them or Hate them at your leisure!)
A graduate of USC's School of Cinema-Television, Tom McCurrie has worked as a development executive, a story analyst and a screenwriter. He is currently working on a novel about Spaghetti Westerns.
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