J. Edgar

My review of a period-drama movie about the famous man.

I just watched this tonight and I thought it was worthy for ATS considering there is at least one or two threads dealing with him here and there are quite a few conpiracies about him too. The movie stars Leonardo Di Caprio in the leading role and is directed by none other than Clint Eastwood. It's a two and a quarter hour movie so something that might not appeal to all. The pace is slow, detailed and deals with some of the more well-known and less well-known aspects of his life and has some great make-up as at least half of the movie takes place in his later years as he dictates his memoirs to various agents before his death. You have to look hard to see that it is Di Caprio in the opening shot. As he dictates the movie flashes back in time and reveals also the story of the FBI, how it came to be and how it came to gain it's wide-ranging powers over the years.

There isn't much conspiracy in it but certainly for a non-American like me it is an interesting look into the history of the period and some of the more important events that took place. It touches briefly on his love for Clyde Tolson, his struggle with the laws of the time and sometimes its leaders but seems to be an honest, frank and intriguing look into many of the events and characters. It might not be suited to younger viewers due to its length and pace. There isn't much action or conspiratorial subject matter either as it deals more with his interactions and the only 3 people he trusted and loved in life. Obviously Clyde Tolson was one of them, the other two were his mother and the last was his lifelong personal secretary Helen Gandy who remained loyal to the last.

It's interesting, (mainly due to the history and the character interactions at the time), respectful and also, believe it or not, quite touching. I can thoroughly recommend it but if you were expecting an action filled, all barrels blazing expose of some other aspects of his like mafia dealings or suchlike then it is probably not for you. It shows his good points of which I think after having watched it there were many, but also his bad points. Quite an all-round view of the man in my opinion.

I don't know any of the other actors apart from Dame Judy Dench (Mother) but everyone gave great performances. Bobby Kennedy and Nixon were briefly portrayed and Nixon was done very nicely.

Imdb details are here but I must admit I found the score too low on this one. 7 is normally my watermark for watching movies. I've wasted enough of my life watching bad movies and this has a 6.9. Maybe one for some of you to catch should you see it go by.

I watched this movie a few weeks ago.
It was good, but I haven't gone back to rewatch it.
A lot of things were very well done. And even though it was slower paced, I still found myself paying attention to the whole movie. And for me with ADHD usually about 22 minutes is my cut off point.
I am not the most educated when it comes to any of this stuff, but I still enjoyed it.
There have been lots and lots of just awful movies IMO recently, and this one really wasn't so bad.

S&F

thanks for the thread, glad I got to comment about the movie.

Nice effort on the review. I've watched it too and liked it. I'm sure that the movie generally has been discussed here before and actually the movie provides an opportunity for sympathisers of Hoover and right wing Republicans to state that it is some kind of Hollywood / liberal smear campaign.

I didn't get that. Although Hoover was a pretty unsympathetic character in the movie (and in real life) we the audience actually cared about the character, or at least had an understanding as to his behaviour.

I did search for a reference to it but found nothing except a one liner in one movie thread leading nowhere and a bunch of random hits and it's only been released recently, Jan 2012 I think. I'm a great fan of Clint Eastwood directed movies and I like Leonardo too but this really was something different and I just couldn't stop watching it. They obviously skipped a lot of things about his life but then I guess it would be a 20 hour movie instead of just 2. Thanks for the comments guys.

I saw it a few days ago, and frankly didn't like it. After being on ATS so long, and hearing Hoovers name my expectations took over. I was surprised about some of the things that they covered, but it mostly looked like it was a movie to show that his actions were in complete and utter love at all cost to the US, as opposed to his need for power.

Just my 2 cents. Peace, NRE.