J. Edgar

Clint Eastwood's boldness and creativity paid off in this excellent portrayal of J. Edgar Hoover's life. A project like that is not pulled off by just anyone, and the fact that a film like that was even made shows the importance of Clint Eastwood. His direction was marvelous, by the way, showing without fear the dark side of the FBI director, but also showing all the good aspects of this very interesting subject. Leonardo DiCaprio is another great reason to watch the film, in one of the most moving performances in his career. His portrayal of a Hoover both ruthless and emotionally vulnerable was superb, and he has excelled once again in studying the character. The make up must also be praised for allowing DiCaprio to portrayal Hoover in many different stages of his life. J. Edgar, if not Clint's best work, is a very interesting and moving film, and the fact that it is so under-appreciated is a mystery to me.

Just got back from a screening in Vancouver~ Thanks to Clint Eastwood, it was almost free (only one dollar per ticket) I will try to keep my review spoiler-free~

Personally, I thought it was a great film. Not exceptional in anyway, but still great. The tone reminds me a bit of Changeling. Makes sense since the stories are from the same period. I have to say, with Eastwood, Leonardo DiCaprio and Dustin Lance Black all on board, I was kind of expecting something a bit more than this.

I thought the weakest link was the script. It was interesting, but flawed. Also, the story was not very intriguing. Having watched Milk (also written by Black) and really liked how the story unfolded, I was expecting a great story about how J. Edgar Hoover rose to power and how he gradually transformed into the monster he became in the end. But instead, the story was told by shifting back and forth in time countless times, which at some point made me feel emotionally detached from the story and the characters. The bad bad makeup (I guess we can all agree on that~) was also very distracting. The elderly characters looked like wax figures to me.

That said, I really LOVED Eastwood's score. It was moving and really fit the mood of the film. His direction and camera-work were masterful as always. Leo was very convincing as J. Edgar, although I keep on seeing bits and pieces of Howard Hughes in his performance. Judi Dench and Naomi Watts were both great, however the same thing can not be said about Armie Hammer. I thought he was much better in The Social Network. There were a few good moments between him and Leo, but his performance as the elderly Clyde Tolson was darn right awful. I blame the horrible makeup.

As for the Oscars, this film will get a few nominations, but I doubt that it would become a strong contender. Though Leo's performance was not without its flaws, I thought it was more than enough to secure his leading actor nomination. Nods for best art direction, best cinematography and best score are also quite possible.

This film had the potential to become a masterpiece, but fell short of my expectations mainly due to the uneven script. While far from being one of his best, it is nevertheless a welcome addition to Eastwood's portfolio.

8/10

A movie about one of the most renowned personalities of America's 20th century directed by one of its most respected directors made it one very highly on my 'to see' list.

The film does not waste much time in giving us a sight of what a powerful even notorious personality the homonymous character is, including his very strong anti-communist sentiments. As far as his character goes he appears as swift to respond, highly intelligent but also highly paranoid, a predator, a hawk, always switched on, always on the edge, without any peace who did not appreciate having any limitations to his authority or power. During a very poignant dialogue towards the end, between Hoover and his assistant Tolson, it becomes very clear how Hoover did not appreciate criticism and were unable to handle the truth expecting others to simply accept his version of the truth.

As we are treated to a more intimate view in his life the closeness to his mother does not go undetected and neither it should as with all personality deficiencies (in men at least) the relationship with their mother is one to closely watch. It was because of her influence in Edgar that left him with a pervasive sense of threat as well as a hunger for power, an influence that amongst other things caused him to be socially limited. Even towards the end of the film where our main character has grown much older (frail physically but not emotionally), his ways have not been altered in any way and one could even presume that his megalomania and paranoia are grown even more.

Despite the aspects of Edgar's character the audience might not come to like, Clint Eastwood does a superb job in making sure that Hoover's gifts are also highlighted which include: impressive energy levels, vigorous memory, capacity to detect patterns and an ability to receiver, process, comprehend & communicate information extremely effectively.

Though not a dark film, this biopic has dark undertones suited perhaps to the personality it portrays. There are very few outdoor scenes, little light in general, and it would also seem that J Edgar was the workaholic type who did not have much of a social or private life. Regarding his social life, he appears outgoing but not very sociable and in connection to his private life we are led to assume that he was a homosexual, which was a cause for him to suffer, perhaps loathe himself, due to the religiously incited anti-gay sentiment preached by his over controlling mother. His inability to fully accept who he was must have, beyond question, caused him plenty of frustration. On this matter, there's a poignant scene in the movie where his mother said (paraphrased): I'd rather have a dead son than a gay son.

With the above in mind, one question that must be therefore raised is whether his quest for power and authority was driven by his ideas/values for a better society or because it provided him with a sense of self worth? Why wasn't' he ever satisfied or willing to give up power? There is also some resemblance, albeit small, of 'The Aviator' another biopic with DiCaprio in the leading role.

DiCaprio gives a forceful performance and carries the film, which is part biopic & part political drama, compellingly. If there is a criticism about this movie it would have to be that it is rather slow and often made me wonder as to where it is heading with the constant interaction between Hoover's youth and later years.

This is an accomplished biographical drama/character study that although it might not be to everyone's taste, nonetheless to those with a keen interest in politics or US history in the 20th century or simply those interested in finding out more about the enigmatic J. Edgar Hoover, this is the film to watch.

It can happen to the best of us. Spielberg, Scorsese, Hitchcock, and even Clint Eastwood himself are capable of making an instantly-dismissible picture. Sometimes, it seems, a director will find himself in a project without much of a passion for it and looking at the final product, it's kind of hard to see his signature on the screen. That is the case with Mr. Eastwood's biopic on the life of J. Edgar Hoover. The movie, "J. Edgar", is everything I did not expect from Mr. Eastwood considering the deep, thought-provocative and artistic power of his last movie "Hereafter" as well as the many films that he made beforehand. Slow, pretentious, and middling.

Many actors have played the infamous FBI founder over the years (once by Hoover himself, in the 1959 James Stewart movie "The FBI Story"). This time, the role goes to Leonardo DiCaprio. Unfortunately, it seems, his feelings about the movie seemed to be identical to Mr. Eastwood's, as he merely ham-acts throughout the entirety of the movie. The only thing differentiating his performance from scene-to-scene depends on how much phony make-up has been slapped on his face. It's sort of like a "Citizen Kane" portrait of a real-life figure, starting around the time of the man's death and whisking back and forth between the past and the present. Except whereas that great Orson Welles film from seventy years ago did it with precision and aesthetic greatness, the narrative of "J. Edgar" takes such vast leaps that it frequently falls flat on its face.

The screenplay was written by Dustin Lance Black, who won the Oscar for Best Screenplay for "Milk." Once again, he more or less writes this story more as a vessel for a homosexual romance and rights message. And it is here that he strikes his intended gold. Hoover's lover, his right-hand man Clyde Tolson, is played with immense passion by Armie Hammer. And it is the scenes between Mr. Hammer and Mr. DiCaprio that work. A particularly great scene involves the two secret lovers sharing a dinner table with some flirtatious Hollywood starlets and nervously trying to shake off the ladies' sexual advances without giving themselves away. Also fascinating and frightful is a confrontation about homosexuality between Mr. DiCaprio and Judi Dench as Hoover's mother.

So it is in this soulful subplot that Mr. Black's screenplay works, but when he tries to form a narrative arc about the lifetime of J. Edgar Hoover and bounce across decades in a coherent manner, it starts to struggle. Furthermore, apart from the love subplot, there is no chemistry between the characters. Naomi Watts, as Hoover's secretary, is given such insignificant things to do that she may as well have been an extra.

Earlier I mentioned that a passionless project even by a great director, will appear to lose its creators' signature and that is no more evident than in here. Mr. Eastwood's directing, though hardly bad, is rather dull with too many long shots and ponderous slow zooms. And while Leonardo DiCaprio was an inspired choice to play J. Edgar Hoover, he does it almost playfully, without much soul or conviction. Most embarrassing of all is the forced accent with which he enunciates the dialogue. Capped with some truly horrific make-up, when playing the elderly Hoover, the actor appears to be giving a comic stand-up performance at a nightclub. Reputedly, Mr. DiCaprio spent five hours every morning having the prosthetics applied to his face when playing the older version of the character. All I can say is that they should have spent at least six, for the make-up looks like exactly what it is. And the stuff put on Mr. Hammer for his old-guy moments makes him look like he belongs in a 30s Universal horror film.

Just as frightful as the makeup is the hack-job cinematography by Tom Stern. Yes, the same Tom Stern who has lit beautiful images for many of Clint Eastwood's earlier films, including "Changeling" for which he deservedly earned an Academy Award nomination. Mr. Stern's specialty seems to be in low-key lighting. Last year, he did a fabulous job catching the mood of "Hereafter" with clever use of shadows and silhouetting lights. But here, he goes overboard. The shadows in "J. Edgar" are so amateurish and monstrous that (I kid you not) the actors sometime disappear in them. If there is a symbolic purpose behind this, I cannot think of it. And other times, the lights are too soft. Close-ups of characters make them appear to be covered with flour and worst of all is when the camera tracks into a dark room and auto-adjusts to the new light...much like a home-video camera.

I never imagined I would see a Clint Eastwood film where I would look at my watch impatiently before the first hour was even up, but alas the day has come. "J. Edgar" is a dimwitted, passionless project that brings almost nothing to our previous knowledge about the formation of the FBI and the men who made it all possible. Only a couple of sharp, provocative moments from Dustin Lance Black's screenplay really stand out. Now Clint Eastwood has made five or six masterpieces during his forty-year career as a director and about twice as many great films, so despite my disappointment, I am prepared to allow this one to fade from my memory.

Not that that would be very hard. If J. Edgar Hoover had a file cabinet labeled 'Instantly Forgettable,' that is where this film would have gone.

Any movie Clint Eastwood makes is certainly worth a look, and Leonardo DiCaprio is entertaining in anything he does. But this version of J. Edgar Hoover's story seems superficial, and lacking meat on its bones.

That has more to do with its form – a theatrical film only two hours and 17 minutes long - relative to the length of the biography at its core. Hoover was such a complex man, and his career was so long, with so many chapters, that his story is probably better suited to a 4-to 6 hour HBO mini-series, where more of the details of his life, that this film with its short running time can only hint at, can be more completely told.

Dustin Lance Black, who wrote this film's screenplay (as well as that of Milk), is walking a very fine line here regarding Hoover's complex personality; it seems that he had a much more intricate story he wanted to tell, were it not for the confines of the feature film format. Here, broad brush strokes take the place of long chapters on Hoover's involvement with the Red Scares of the '20's and '50's, political blackmail, gambling, organized crime, and of course, homosexuality.

But if it had been made as a mini-series, it probably wouldn't have attracted Eastwood and DiCaprio, and consequently wouldn't have the high profile that this film does. That version of his story will have to wait for another time.

Eastwood chose to shoot this story in a washed-out color palette. The story jumps back in forth in time, and the closer the events of the film are to the end of Hoover's life, the more color Eastwood imbues into the scenes; the earliest moments in the time line are shown in a color scheme barely above monochrome. It's a subtle effect, but it helps the viewer keep track of where the scenes exist in Hoover's life.

That long time line necessitates that DiCaprio must be seen in various makeup schemes to convey the age of his character at any point in the story. His makeup is uniformly good; but the two other principal actors in the film, Armie Hammer as Hoover's longtime companion Clyde Tolson, and Naomi Watts as Hoover's secretary Helen Gandy, don't fare so well as their characters age. Obviously, the lion's share of the film's makeup budget was allotted to the star. Hammer, it must be said, gives a fine performance under all those old-age prosthetics. Christopher Shyer, who plays Richard Nixon in a brief scene, has the least-effective verisimilitude of anyone who has played the man in a motion picture.

But makeup alone does not a performance make. Di Caprio's ability to remain in character and "age" with him is remarkable, and transcends the work of his makeup artist. As he did with his portrayal of Howard Hughes in The Aviator, his skillful use of voice and body to stay true to his characterization of Hoover through the years is evident throughout.

One gets the feeling that much of this film was shot in front of a green screen, no surprise given the various eras of Washington that it depicts; but to a longtime moviegoer, there's a certain sadness that imparts to seeing that technique, once the province of the large-scale action film, used in serious dramas. There was probably no other way to do it in this day and age, but it just calls attention to itself in a way that gets in the way of one's immersion into the subject matter. Admittedly, that's my problem, not the film's.

So, is it worth a look? Sure. Best Picture nominee? In a field of ten, probably. Will Leo finally win an Oscar this time out? Well, look at it this way: Paul Newman gave his best performance in The Verdict, but the Academy finally honored him for The Color of Money. Leo probably should have won for playing Howard Hughes, but maybe he'll win for playing J. Edgar.