J. Edgar

J. Edgar (2011)

This is a particular kind of movie--the based on fact biopic--done with great attention to period accuracy. If that's what's important, getting a bit of American history into a vivid big screen format, then this works pretty well. On top of that, Leonardo DiCaprio is excellent, very professional.

But "J. Edgar" not a terrific movie. If a movie is meant to be gripping and moving and beautiful and fun and all those things, this is none of those. It isn't boring or tepid or clumsy or insulting--but not being those things isn't exactly a compliment.

And the reasons for this are clear. Mainly there's the format. Between Dustin Black and Clint Eastwood a decision was made to "tell" the story by means of the character, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, literally telling the story to a typist. This is a dry and painful way of any kind of drama. It's even a boring way to teach a class, and sometimes you get the feeling we're being "taught" things about our history we need to know.

Be careful, if you watch only half the movie, you'll be filled with misconceptions that the movie itself corrects, in the last few moments during a final important conversation. That problem of course is a new kind of "unreliable narrator," since the story is being told by the protagonist himself. And no one is very honest, truly, in an autobiography. In a way that makes the movie the most interesting it can be. I'm also not sure what the director and writer really feel about Hoover's sexual orientation, at least as it applied to his doing his job.

There are some familiar Eastwood slants on content that might irk a few of you familiar with his politics. For example, he makes very public his appreciation for civil rights and equality, but in a way that's so showy you begin to suspect the motivation (that he believes what he preaches but he also wants you to like him for it). But then he also has little to say about the heavy handed FBI (and pre-FBI) days when lots of innocent people got followed and railroaded and jailed and worse. The mood is set that in those old days things were different and we really needed a megalomaniac at the FBI to keep this darned country safe from the Commies. Something like that.

As a drama, which is maybe the secondary consideration, the plot moves between a present day 1960s crisis (between the Kennedy and Nixon years) and the early days. It flips back and forth a lot (too much for me) and keeps DiCaprio's narration flowing right through a lot of it in part to hold it together. The result is fragmented as a story, and stilted as a dramatic flow.

Just a heads up on the format and the flow. Again, if it's content you want, and you can enjoy the way it gets cobbled together, there's a lot of stuff here to sort out.

The best that can be said for this film is that it got made. The subject matter, about the life of a dreadfully dull and stodgy old bureaucrat from a bygone era, is not in line with Hollywood's usual mass-produced action films aimed at brash young boys. I credit Director Eastwood and lead actor Leonardo Di Caprio with enough star power to convince the money-men to fund this project. And it turned a profit.

But there are plenty of problems with "J. Edgar", not the least of which is a script that flips back and forth too much between the 1960s and earlier decades in Hoover's life. A lot of time is wasted on the gangster era of the 1920 and 30s, possibly because Di Caprio is so youthful looking, he fits a younger image of Hoover, in contrast to an aging old man in the 60s. Almost nothing is included about the JFK assassination and follow-up investigation despite the fact that Hoover played a central role in marketing the "lone-gunman" theory.

Throughout, Hoover comes across as bureaucratic, rigid, moralistic, self-righteous, incapable of changing with the times, dishonest, and a hypocrite. Absent from the film are any virtuous qualities he may have had.

As Hoover, Leonardo Di Caprio gives a better performance than I would have predicted. But the script does Di Caprio no favors. The dialogue for Hoover consists largely of platitudes and pronouncements. Hoover doesn't talk with people so much as make little speeches to them. And Di Caprio's monotone voice exaggerates this talking down to others effect.

Hoover demanded loyalty from his staff. As his private secretary, Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts) is an interesting study in forced loyalty. Ditto Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer), as Hoover's sidekick.

Cinematography is quite dark. Colors are heavily muted, almost monochromatic. Costumes and prod design are convincing across five decades. But makeup for an older Clyde Tolson is horrid; his face looks like a wax figure that's about to melt.

"J. Edgar" could have been much better, had the script focused more on the sixties and shown Hoover's working relationship to the Kennedy's and Lyndon Johnson. And though I appreciate Di Caprio's efforts to get the film made, a different actor might have been more convincing in the role of Hoover. Still, the film is a reasonably good effort. It's worth watching once, if for no other reason than because it's a true story about a real-life historical figure.

The infamous words spoken by Pilate to Jesus of Nazareth come to mind when one ponders the life of John Edgar Hoover. Was he a genius or a tyrant? A patriot or a dictator? A cross dresser or an uptight man with no sex life? Nobody knows for certain, and director Clint Eastwood does not offer a definitive answer to any of these questions, which is exactly as it should be. Life is rarely cut-and-dried, but moviegoers seem to have forgotten that fact in the face of media that state speculation as fact on a regular basis.

I find it not only surprising, but distressing, that a major criticism from those critics who panned the film is the lack of closure on Hoover's private life. Unless they are truly obtuse, they must realize that no film could possibly do such a thing, since his files were destroyed at his own bidding. All is speculation, and a fine speculation it is. Leonardo DiCaprio is superb (as usual) in the title role, never revealing more cards then he chooses to at any given moment. He receives fine support from Armie Hammer as Clyde Tolson, Hoover's Second in Command/Rumored Lover, and Naomi Watts as his endlessly loyal private secretary Helen Gandy. At a time when "red fever" ran high, Hoover's relentlessly tightening control on government investigations is shown in flashbacks that only underscore how supreme power can corrupt even the noblest of intentions.

In the end, the film answers none of the questions that seem so important to the very critics that disliked it, but in my humble opinion, a well made film is one that inspires debate or discussion rather than simply hand down a definitive 'this is the way it was' with an imperious gavel. With "J Edgar", Eastwood and his cast have succeeded well.

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.

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.