J. Edgar | Film review

From Unforgiven (1992) onward, Clint Eastwood’s directorial efforts have often questioned the righteousness of a lone-wolf authority figure. That’s why J. Edgar Hoover makes such a promising subject. Over the course of 48 years as bureau chief, the founding FBI director amassed unprecedented power and secrets so sensational he could allegedly blackmail presidents. Fanatically devoted to his work, Hoover was also famously dogged by rumors about his sexuality. It’s on this aspect of his life that Eastwood’s disappointing new movie, scripted by Dustin Lance Black (Milk), eventually settles as a focus, portraying Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio) and confidant-colleague Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer) as married in all but name (and, at least onscreen, consummation).

Shot in bland pseudo-monochrome by regular cinematographer Tom Stern, the film grips whenever it zeroes in on Hoover’s paranoia and privacy, both Eastwood obsessions. But while the romance gives J. Edgar a sensitive core, the broader picture is fuzzier. Black’s time-hopping script trots out print-the-legend highlights (Hoover’s humiliation at never having made an arrest, his jealousy over Dillinger hunter Melvin Purvis, his fame-hogging in the Lindbergh-kidnapping investigation, his secret files on Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr.) without any sense of historical scope. Its ideas about the appropriate reach of justice seem half-formed at best. And even by biopic standards, the casting and makeup can be embarrassing. The quality of DiCaprio’s performance seems to vary depending on the time period; as Tolson, former Winklevoss twin Hammer is superb, but as an old man he looks like one of Harmony Korine’s trash humpers.

B-filmmaker Larry Cohen, who made 1977’s The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover, has preemptively blasted Eastwood’s movie for perpetuating rumors about Hoover’s sex life while neglecting red-meat episodes in the man’s career. The latter part seems beyond doubt.