J. Edgar

There is so much wrong with this film that it is hard to know where to start...

Cinematography by Tom Stern...actors simply disappear into the shadows - that would be a 'fail' in film-school.

The make-up...too much putty and facial paralysis.

Naomi Watts grossly underused...poor Naomi.

Leonardo...old face, young voice - dismally fails to command the screen at any time.

Clint Eastwood was/is a right-wing Republican...obviously, trying to right the wrongs of his misguided political leanings...through his directorial meanderings - and, this film darkly meanders, sluggishly, from one time period to the other without rhyme or reason.

The mechanism for the story...an old Hoover (with a young voice) dictating his memoirs is...facile.

Sorry, Lance!

The distortion of the facts are as criminal as Hoover was a manipulator...the diagnosis for his homosexuality is as feeble as is most of the fragmented and lurching script.

Hoover...a stutterer, friendless, with an over-protective mother who stated that she would rather have a dead son than a son who was a daffodil...well, that's not exactly reaching into the murky depths of psychoanalysis...anyone with half a brain could have come up with that hackneyed level of reasoning.

Hoover was a spiteful, vindictive man with an over-inflated ego - a tyrannical dictator in his own office...just imagine what he would have become if he had been allowed to step forth from that said office...yes, that is speculation but the whole film is speculative...so, why not go the whole hog - it would have made this drudgery a little more interesting and, lo and behold, entertaining.

Hollistory...the tyrant of truth - is alive and thriving in Hollywood.

Completely and significantly ignored by The Academy - sometimes they do recognise piffle - despite the names attached.

Trailer...