Enjoyed this enormously and could have happily watched it for another couple of hours, with loving period detail, fascinating lead character and Leo di Caprio strong in the lead. How do you tackle the life of someone like Hughes which was so extraordinary? They've decided to focus on his career as an aviator, which is a great idea, as it gets to cover Hell's Angels, his flight records, major crash, troubles with Pan Am and the Spruce Goose attempt; it even allows to incorporate his romance with Katie Hepburn, by having him take her flying. It's a great spine.
But Scorsese (or the producers or whoever) seem to have then gone "but the other stuff is so interesting..." so they shove in a bit about Jane Russell in The Outlaw and Faith Domerge and Ava Gardner and one too many party scenes with a band playing. Cate Blanchett is marvellous as Kate H and watching it I was thinking "but of course it's a great role, easy to play"... until I saw Kate Beckingsale as Ava Gardner which you would also think "great role, easy to play"... but she's average. So snaps to Cate.
NB I enjoyed the little cameos - Jude Law as Errol Flynn (though I think it was really Cary Grant who was a closer friend), Gwen Stefani as Jean Harlow, etc.
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