Review of The Aviator (2004) by Rainer K — 29 Mar 2012

Martin Scorsese created another masterpiece. With The Aviator he showed that gifted directors can work in any genre, with any source material and succeed.

This film should actually be a 3 hour formulaic biopic but somehow Marty paced it perfectly and gave it enough substance and twists to keep me entertained.

Leonardo DiCaprio is also at the top of his game and most of his co-stars too.

I can't help but criticize some casting decisions though - Blanchett looks nothing like Hepburn and Beckinsale is in fact older than DiCaprio while Gardner was about 15 years younger than him. She looks of course ten years younger than her actual age, but so does DiCaprio.

Howard Hughes was a dark horse for me - I didn't know much about him before the film. But now I have an idea who and how he was. An aviator, a tycoon, a genius, a neurotic - driven by his OCD (luckily for Scorsese - as his mental state worsens some of the best scenes of the film happen - quite disturbing too).

There are quite some beautiful scenes in the film. My favourite was the one at the Hepburn estate when the realist and technician Hughes faces the artsy Hepburn family - it has not that much influence on the film or the character and is rather short but you can see this happen everyday.