Aviator-2004

STILL FROM THE MOVIE

Story: A biopic depicting the early years of legendary aviator Howard Hughes' career, from the late 1920s to the mid-1940s ... 

Movie Review: The boy has grown up. Leornado, who never joined the big league despite fine performances in films like Titanic and Romeo and Juliet, enters the actor's adulthood with Aviator. Ostensibly, a biopic on America's greatest maverick millionaire, Howard Hughes who made his millions during the War, despite his eccentricities -- or is it due to his eccentricities -- the film is actually philosophy. On dreaming Big, aiming Big, achieving Big... 

The young boy who inherited his father's tool factory at the raw age of 18 and poured in its profits in sky-limit schemes has a story to tell the contemporary world. Of course, you might say that Howard was the quintessential capitalist that Adam Smith serenaded. But that's not Howard's real story. That he used his legacy to rewrite the rules of society and sculpt the future of a nation instead of recycling nuts and bolts is the moral of this modern day fable. When he was a kid, Howard told his mom: ``I want to make big planes and big movies...''. In short, make fantasy fact. That's what he did. And that's what every entrepreneur-dreamer needs to do. 

On the personal note too, the film scores as it traces the kinky man's affairs with two of Hollywood's most memorable women -- Katherine Hepburn (Cate) and Ava Gardner (Kate). Of the two, it's Cate Blanchett who matches up to the `all acute angles' personality of Howard and the chemistry between the two lights up the screen in rare colours. But the film belongs to Leonardo alone who grows from 18 to adulthood without losing the core of his character: a dreamer-doer who didn't quite have it right.