Starring: Leonard DiCaprio, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts, Judy Dench, and Jeffery Donovan
Distributor: Roadshow Films
Runtime: 137 mins. Reviewed in Jan 2012
| 
| 
This is an American biographical drama, that focuses on the personal life and professional career of J. Edgar Hoover, who was Director of the FBI in the US from 1924 to 1972. Once called the second most powerful man in the US, Hoover served five US Presidents as head of law enforcement in America, and ruled the FBI with a rod of iron. He collected andheld information that could ruin people’s lives, and he used his information to control the lives of both enemies and friends. He collected evidence by using illegal methods, and he amassed embarrassing private files on political leaders. However, he also modernized police technology in the US, revolutionised the collection of forensic evidence in his country, and was a person, who wielded unbelievable power and influence for a very long time.
Hoover was admired, feared and loathed, but it was the attribution of homosexuality and cross-dressing that most dogged him through his life. The movie touches on these things, and at times becomes preoccupied with them, but the clouds of suspicion are never totally substantiated. The FBI’s associate director, Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer) was Hoover’s life-long partner, but nothing much that is too physical is portrayed in the film, though it keeps the suspicion of homosexuality alive throughout.
Leonardo DiCaprio gives a powerhouse performance as Hoover, and his acting literally drives the film. He never leaves its centre. He captures in a thoroughly commanding way private moments in the life of an inflexible man. His performance confronts Hoover’s obsession to claim more than he achieved, and his cruel bullying of those around him,even those he kept close to him, like Tolson. Historic interactions, such as his feud with Robert F. Kennedy (Jeffrey Donovan) are conveyed briefly and intelligently by the film’s Director, Clint Eastwood, but many issues of consequence are not analysed. We learn alot about the Lindbergh kidnapping, but not a great deal about Hoover’s harassment of civil rights activists, or his famed unwillingness to fight organised crime.
Weighed down at times by heavy scripting, the film covers selected events which characterised Hoover’s career. The movie was an opportunity for Eastwood to make Hoover more understandable than history has presented him. Hoover was a man who stopped at nothing to protect his country, but at the end of the film we still don’t know why that was the case. Was it excessive patriotism or zealotry on his part, was he a misunderstood person of intelligence dominated by an over-powering mother (Judy Dench), or a person who had problems coping with his frustrated attraction to another man? His positive relationships with Tolson, and his loyal secretary, Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts), might have provided the definitive clue, but Eastwood ultimately chooses not to solve the puzzle. His direction stays at a distance from the real man. If there is any resolution, the film hints in the final moments that it probably comes from the humanity that lies trapped neurotically within Hoover’s personality, which drives his need for Tolson. For Eastwood, their relationship dramatically illustrates, a little simplistically, that love can always be relied upon to overcome conflict, or hatred, between human beings.
This is a movie that delves into history by showing Hoover at the edge of pathology, as a cruel man desperate for admiration and compulsively patriotic. The movie has wonderful acting performances by Leonardo DiCaprio, as J. Edgar, Armie Hammer as Hoover’s caring partner, and Judy Dench, as Hoover’s homophobic, controlling mother. Its sweep is broad-brushed, but it is difficult to answer the question whether Hollywood sees the film as another opportunity to explore the surrounds of gay attraction, or whether the political and private reach of the movie is over-ambitious. The movie may not entirely clarify the life and thinking of one of America’s most controversial and interesting political figures, but the film keeps you absorbed, nevertheless. DiCaprio’s performance is oscar-worthy, and Eastwood applies his well-known director’s skill to expose us to unsettling, but fascinating, historical events.
12 Random Films…
