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The Aviator Movie Review Summary

Actors: Leonardo Di Caprio, Cate Blanchett, Kate Beckinsale, John C. Reilly, Alec Baldwin, Alan Alda, Ian Holm, Jude Law

Detailed plot synopsis reviews of The Aviator


Born into millions generated by a tool and die company in Houston and enamored of flying, young Howard Hughes (DiCaprio) heads to Hollywood to make a movie about World War I fighter pilots. It ends up being the most expensive film ever made up to that time, but it is a success.
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Soon Katharine Hepburn has moved in with him. Hughes has his design team build faster and faster planes, and sets speed records in them. He also buys a controlling interest in the commercial liner TWA. With the coming of World War II, he turns to designing spy planes for the military, and a giant troop and munitions carrier called Hercules.

But Hughes is also privately plagued by a manic fear of germs and disease. And by then Hepburn has left him for Spencer Tracy. Although Hughes is seeing Ava Gardner, there is also a parade of other starlets through his bed and in the press. Juan Trippe (Baldwin), his rival executive at Pan Am, teams up with Senator Brewster (Alda) to seek legislation that will give Pan Am exclusive control of international air routes, and Brewster also initiates congressional hearings to allege war profiteering by Hughes. His germ mania grows much worse. This 2004 Martin Scorsese film is sumptuous but weak, and nearly three hours long.
The review of this Movie prepared by David Loftus




Howard Hughes was an eccentric genius. This movie covers the first part of his life, following Hughes' rise from a rich Texas machine tool manufacturer, to a maverick Hollywood movie director, to an innovative engineering genius who loved flying and designed cutting edge planes while chasing beautiful Hollywood stars, while all the time fighting off corrupt politicians and business rivals. He invented a cantilivered bra for Jane Russell and took an airline to worldwide success against all odds, and tackled both tasks with equal enthusiasm.

The movie follows his successes and failures in business, his relationships with Katherine Hepburn and Ava Gardner, and hints at affairs with dozens of other women, while
his crippling obsessive compulsive disorders started to control his life, and he was almost killed in a terrible air crash.

This film depicts Hughes as giving the public what they wanted in movies, despite the ridicule of other Hollywood establishment figures, directors and producers who would have preferred to see him fail. He was a man who put his money where his mouth was. We see him take risks in business and life, sometimes crashing in both, and this movie shows the excitement at his life at his peak, hinting towards the end of the tragic downward spiral that followed.
The review of this Movie prepared by Maggie



Script Analysis of The Aviator

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Plot & Themes

Time/era of movie:    -   1930's-1950's Inner struggle or disability    -   Yes Job/Profession/Poverty Story?    -   Yes Job:    -   pilot Brain/Body not working?    -   mental illness

Main Character

Identity:    -   Male Profession/status:    -   simply wealthy    -   engineer Age:    -   20's-30's Ethnicity/Nationality    -   White American

Setting

United States    -   Yes Air?    -   Yes Misc setting    -   fancy mansion

Writing Style

Accounts of torture and death?    -   no torture/death Sex/nudity in movie?    -   Yes What kind of sex:    -   kissing    -   seeing nude male butt Any profanity?    -   Occasional swearing

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