Review of J. Edgar

I love historical movies, and J. Edgar was just one of those movies that wasn't too boring, nor way far out from the historical truth and facts. It wasn't a documentary, but a form of story-telling based on a historical figure. I enjoy the pace of the story, and like being a giant nerd: love seeing the names and images of historical events and names. Reminds me of Hoffa mixed with Brokeback Mountain. J. Edgar Hoover is dramatized in this movie as we see him as the Appointed Director of the Bureau of Investigation. Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black's narrative moves freely among various stages of J. Edgar Hoover's life and career, framed by scenes in which the aging FBI director dictates his memoirs to an admiring young agent. The movie jumps around through his life from 1919 to 1972. In 1921, he became the Deputy Head of the Bureau of Investigation. He had no wife, no girlfriend, practically no social life, and so, the Attorney General promoted him to Appointed Director in 1924 after Anarchist bombings. This is where J. Edgar (Leonardo DiCaprio) meets his new loyal secretary and first love Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts) and started to keep personal and confidential files on several people in crime or anyone that was after him, he wanted them investigated and a file started on them. J. Edgar became obsessed with wanting to solve crimes, and the movie focus on some of the most interesting cases during his time, such as the Emma Goldman deporting, and the disappearance of the Charles Lindbergh baby case. Half of the movie, become less about J. Edgar and more about solving this crime to the point, I was asking myself is this about J. Edgar or a movie about the baby case? Also, the movie rarely touch on the rise of the gangsters in the 1930s. I would have love to see John Dillinger in the film since the opening had his death mask on J. Edgar's desk. Nor does the movie talk about what Hoover did during World War 2, or McCarthy's hearings in the 1950's. Joe McCarthy and Hoover had a very interesting feud that would be great for the film. A lost there. It doesn't even talk about his work against the union strikers, his work against the Mafia, and barely talks about his war on Rev. King and the civil right movement. But the civil rights movement was one elephant that couldn't be sidestepped, even by Clint Eastwood. The movie made J. Edgar think Martin Luther King only as a threat. It didn't explore his racist attitude toward blacks. This final crusade against the public opinion that served him so well finally discredited Hoover and his Bureau of Inquisition. Top it off with his moral blackmailing, while hiding his own inadequacies, and you have a dark portrait of the typical hypocrite-persecutor. Not an unlikeable character indeed. He believed that information was power and used wire-tapping. The organization he created was the introduction of fingerprint files, crime labs and agents. He even invented one of the most vicious, racist, and destructive programs ever to emerge from the U.S. Government: Cointelpro. J. Edgar kept his personal life very private. This movie depicts his speculated personal life as having a relationship with Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer), his FBI Associate Director for nearly 40 years. Whatever went on behind closed doors of their homes will never be known, however in the end, Hoover left his entire estate to Tolson. I think some critics are bashing the film due to its homoerotic. Some critic might view this as homosexual activist's propaganda to promote their perversion or same-sex marriage, but let's remember that J. Edgar was indeed a close-door homosexual. Stop gay bashing. Other supporting cast were great, such as Judi Dench as Anna Hoover, Hoover's overbearing controlling mother. It's shows his fears, a paranoid mother's boy who wants to break out, if it's by creating G-Man comics books and movies, or making this stories more than it seems, desiring a celebrity like status. I love the theme how Edgar couldn't express his love and compensated by channeling his passion into a lust for fame and an obsessive collecting of sexual secrets with which he intimidated prominent political figures. It not a standard biopic but a character study of a paranoid, secretive man. Of course it feels closed in. That's the point! I did have an issue with the old make up for the stars. It really was distracting and I think altered their performance. Tolson, in particular, looks like Boris Karloff's Mummy. Hammer's old man acting is just laughable, but better in his normal age. DiCaprio does a fine job of staying in character including his East Coast accent. Naomi Watts is great, but not greatly noted. While the actors all offered up top notch performances, poor lighting and subpar makeup took away from the aesthetics of the film, while a confusing narrative and humdrum storytelling diminished any impact it might have otherwise had. Perhaps designed to create a visually dark mood to match Hoover's reputation, the scenes are so dark you sometimes can't see what's going on. But that's very far from the main problem. The story, a back 'n' forth between old age and the main events of his life is so choppy that it's often hard to follow. Still, the film inspire you to research more about the man and discover what this man Hoover really did for this country.