Rules Don’t Apply

THE GIST: A very modest and religious aspiring actress travels with her mother to Hollywood in 1958 to become one of the many young women under contract with eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes's RKO Pictures. She's chauffeured around town by an ambitious young man who hopes Hughes will invest in his business plan. The attraction between the two is immediate, but their relationship is forbidden by Hughes' rules of conduct.

Rules Don’t Apply is one of those movies that leaves you puzzled by the end because it's not clear what its scope or goal really was. Is it a love story or are Hughes's eccentricities the subject here?

There are also plenty of characters that don't really get to come completely alive, further stunting the final product. Warren Beatty wrote and directed the film, as he has done more successfully in the past, so the lackluster end result really falls on his shoulders.

The cast is certainly full of great talent, including Warren Beatty himself, Paul Sorvino, Alden Ehrenreich, Matthew Broderick, Candice Bergen, Martin Sheen, Annette Bening, Lily Collins, Taissa Farmiga, Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Oliver Platt, and Alec Baldwin.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Sadly, not horrible, but not really something I'd recommend spending any time with either.

Grade: 5