The last time international movie star Leonardo DiCaprio and legendary American director Martin Scorsese collaborated, it was for the film, “Gangs of New York.”

In that film, pretty boy DiCaprio was miscast as Amsterdam Vallon, a brutish ragamuffin hell bent on revenge. Thus DiCaprio created a giant absence in the crux of the film’s narrative, which became so obvious, especially when he shared the screen with an outstanding Daniel Day-Lewis (William “Bill the Butcher” Cutting), you almost felt sorry for DiCaprio, one of the luckiest men in the world (as he himself would admit).

Reunited for “The Aviator,” this time Scorsese takes a 180-degree turn from the filth and poverty of Civil War New York of “Gangs of New York” to mid-20th Century Hollywood, California, and correctly casts DiCaprio as millionaire adventurer and playboy Howard Hughes – a role much closer for DiCaprio than Vallon.

A notorious eccentric who suffered from several maladies including mysophobia (fear of germ contamination), dysmorphophobia (fear of deformity) somniphobia (fear of sleep) and perfectionism (fear of failure), Hughes used the vast wealth he inherited from his father’s drill bit empire in order to accomplish three things: get richer, make movies and fly planes like nobody had ever done before.

In a short time he managed to co-direct and produce the most expensive film ever made at the time, “Hell’s Angels,” break several speed records with planes he helped design, and create more wealth than anybody needed.

Hughes hated to shake anybody’s hand but had no reservations about swapping fluids with the likes of Katherine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett), Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale) and Faith Domerque (Kelli Garner).

During and after WWII, Hughes’ ego and TWA grew bigger while he and other war profiteers ripped off the American public. He made more movies and planes, pushing the buttons of aviation possibilities and the bra of Jane Russell into new dimensions that scared aviation and censor foes alike.

Feeling threatened by his emerging power, rival Pan Am – lead by Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin) – did the age-old American thing and bought up a senator, Maine’s Senator Owen Brewster (Alan Alda), who went after Hughes in order to stifle capitalist competition.

However, despite his ailing health and increasing madness, Hughes was no ordinary businessman who could be squashed by powerful people. He had the resources to fight the powers to be because he was essentially one of them -- even if he did have his idiosyncrasies (a poorer person would have been committed to an asylum).

Done in a postmodern allegory of various sorts, in many ways “The Aviator” is Scorsese’s ode to film history -- in general and Scorsese’s own career.

With the help of many, in particular director of photographer Robert Richardson (who collaborated with Scorsese on “Casino” and Sandy Powell (who worked on “Gangs” the film is shot in a neo-Technicolor to make the film look like what it would have looked like had the film been shot during Hughes’ filmmaking days.

Accordingly, Hughes may have lived as an outsider, but he, like Scorsese, was no true rebel against the system. He merely sidestepped general protocol to see his vision through and would settle for nothing short of perfection -- at least as they perceive it -- no matter how much it cost. (In an interview for “Gangs of New York,” DiCaprio said, Scorsese is “a perfectionist, obsessed with detail. That's why he went over budget and over schedule.)

With a cast of A-list stars and actors in the mix, “The Aviator” simultaneously pays and strays homage to the cast system of Hughes’ time. There is the star (DiCaprio) and starlet (Beckinsale), the supporting actors (Blanchett, Baldwin and Ian Holm), the character actor (John C. Reilly) and the pop culture heartthrob (Gwen Stefani) in the mix. Their typecasting at once plays on the notions of typecasting while breaking the molds as they reinterpret well-known historical figures.

Hughes’ battle with censorship is a nod to Scorsese’s notorious ordeal with “The Last Temptation of Christ.” Hughes madness/self-destruction recalls Jake La Motta’s (Robert De Niro) in “Raging Bull.” The way Hughes and his gang worked on the periphery of society – often ripping it off in the process – recalls “Goodfellas.”

On the other hand, if my memory serves me well, “The Aviator” is the only other feature film of Scorsese’s besides “Age of Innocence” where there are no assaults. In a technical virtuoso scene that alone is worth the price of the ticket, Hughes does bang himself up horribly in a plane crash, but the damage is unintentional.

Yes, “The Aviator” is a good film with value, probably better than “Gangs of New York,” but it would still rank in the bottom third of Scorsese’s oeuvre.