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J. Edgar
- Director: Clint Eastwood
- Writer: Dustin Lance Black
- Producer: Clint Eastwood; Brian Grazer
CGiii Comment
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...
The(ir) Blurb...
Biopic of J. Edgar Hoover told by Hoover as he recalls his career for a biography. Early in his career, Hoover fixated on Communists, anarchists and any other revolutionary taking action against the U.S. government. He slowly builds the agency's reputation, becoming the sole arbiter of who gets hired and fired. One of his hires is Clyde Tolson who is quickly promoted to Assistant Director and would be Hoover's confidant and companion for the rest of Hoover's life. Hoover's memories have him playing a greater role in the many high profile cases the FBI was involved in - the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, the arrest of bank robbers like John Dillinger - and also show him to be quite adept at manipulating the various politicians he's worked with over his career, thanks in large part to his secret files.
Cast & Characters
Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover;
Armie Hammer as Clyde Tolson;
Josh Lucas as Charles Lindbergh;
Naomi Watts as Helen Gandy;
Ed Westwick as Agent Smith;
Lea Thompson as Lela Rogers;
Dermot Mulroney as Colonel Schwarzkopf;
Jeffrey Donovan as Robert F. Kennedy;
Stephen Root as Arthur Koehler;
Judi Dench as Anne Marie Hoover