J. EDGAR

Director Clint Eastwood tackles the sweeping, long reign of J. Edgar Hoover, first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, exactly as it was – sweeping and long. At 137 minutes the film isn’t Eastwood’s longest, but it feels that way as the story darts back and forth through time and the only marker the audience is given about which era we’re in is whether or not Leonardo di Caprio is wearing a prosthetic old man face.

Leonardo di Caprio delivers an intense and sometimes paranoid J. Edgar Hoover, definitely hitting his stride as the younger, obsessive and ambitious man. As an older Hoover he recounts his memoirs to junior agents, and the film takes us through key moment in the history of the FBI such as the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. But the real insights into the man are in his relationships with his mother played by a haunting Judi Dench, his loyal secretary Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts) and his second-in-command Clyde Tolson, The Social Network’s Armie Hammer. The professional and possibly romantic interactions between Hoover and Tolson are by far the most dramatic and compelling scenes in the film, but it still feels like so much has been overlooked. This is the case
throughout the entire biopic as there’s so much material there that moments like JFK’s assassination are only given a cursory glance. J. Edgar tells some of the story but ultimately can’t quite figure out what it’s trying to say. (AH) ***