Directed by Clint Eastwood
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Judi Dench, Armie Hammer, Naomi
Watts
Released by: Warner Home Video.
Out: Now
We meet Hoover (DiCaprio) as a young man, determined and driven
from the very start and fully encouraged and stifled in equal measure by his
mother (Dench). It is a pattern that will continue through most of his life,
but it is a life that will impact a lot of people and make his name notable as a
truly notable historical figure – if not always for the right reasons. We see him start the first real criminal
database, start to hold various government officials to account... but we also
see him re-inventing himself as the person his mother always wanted him to be,
often by embroidering his exploits in the retelling. His main confidant is
fellow agent Clyde Tolson (Hammer – soon to be cinema’s new Lone Ranger), who
he instantly takes a personal and professional shine to. However this is the
1950s an era where even the merest hint of the love that dare not speak its
name would echo loudly through the halls that Hoover wants to make his own. Besides,
Hoover’s ever-loving mother makes it clear she will brook no such ‘unmanly’
thoughts from her boy. As Hoover’s powerbase
grows, his inner-conflicts multiply, providing the fodder for the legends and
legacies that will eventually outlive him.
Eastwood retains his position as an A-List director, but his
recent efforts have lacked some of the dynamic momentum of his previous
outings. This story, like its lead character, wants to be profound and
important and stand for something but the reality is that it tends to meander, addressing
cause and effect but not always sure which is which. It feels less thin and weak
than The Iron Lady ( though we once again keep moving backwards and forwards
through time to frame events), but though the script and cinematography are
more substantial, it feels like reading a dry book that never fully holds your
attention despite its subject-matter. What makes J Edgar tick? Is he overly-obsessed
with details? Well, clearly. Does he organise and revolutionise law enforcement
in the US? Definitely. Does his blinkered, clinical and abrasive demeanour,
coupled with a lack of tact and diplomacy, win more enemies than friends? That’s
well documented.
Is Hoover gay? Ah, like some Freudian couch analysis, but with a
better furnished closet, that becomes a central pillar of the story and clearly
that’s the conclusion – Hoover being a powerful personality crippled by his
upbringing, singular drive and, ultimatey, hypocrisy. But even in the most overtly
tender scenes between Hoover and Tolson, Eastwood seems to feel the need to
give Hoover an ‘out’, with moments suggesting this could still all be a product
of over-mothering and simply deeply profound brotherly affection rather than
anything physical – at least from Hoover’s side. It almost feels as if Eastwood
is acting as shrink himself with a ‘It’s not important what I think, how do YOU
feel?’ position. J Edgar is all about
Hoover as a troubled soul, but by the time Eastwood and Hoover feels ready to
commit to the inevitable truths, the film is almost over and forever chaste.
Ultimately we’re witnessing a hand-wringing of psycho-analytical proportions but
the most interesting aspects remain as buttoned up as Hoover.
Leonardo DiCaprio is a solid actor who has been taking some interesting
roles of late and this follows the like of playing Howard Hughes (The Aviator) and
Frank Abagnale (Catch me if You Can) in
other biopics, but it’s quite unnerving that for a good half of the movie he is
encased in age-increasing prosthetics that make it look as if the role could have
been a shoe-in for Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Hammer as the more
comfortable-in-his-own-skin Tolson is every bit as good as DiCaprio and Watts’
Helen Gandy (the closest thing Hoover ever has to a female companion in his
life) makes much of a role that is not so much under-written as deliberately
low-key.
J Edgar is an interesting look at a US legend, but in the end it
feels like a film that is so much about frustration that it becomes frustrating
itself: ‘worthy’ but less revealing than it might have been.
RATING: 3/5
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