"When morals decline and good men do nothing, evil flourishes."
J. Edgar had the potential to be an important and powerful film. You had Clint Eastwood as director, Dustin Lance Black (who won the Academy Award for Milk) as screenwriter, a bankable movie star in Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead, and the intriguing true life story of J. Edgar Hoover. A controversial figure, Hoover served as director of the FBI for nearly fifty years. He had a career that was plagued by paranoia, petty jealousy, and racism and was long rumored to be a closeted homosexual as well as a cross-dresser. But, J. Edgar doesn't come close to the quality of recent Eastwood pictures like Invictus or Gran Torino.
Eastwood and Black get the film off to a poor start with an aged Hoover (DiCaprio) regaling a succession of young FBI agents with his life story in order to compose his memoirs. It's a rather lazy and clumsy device that feeds the narrative to the audience in a piecemeal fashion. Hoover began working with the Bureau of Investigation in its infancy by arresting and deporting anti-government radicals. Eventually promoted to the position of director, Hoover attempts to increase the FBI's power as he spearheads the investigation into the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh's baby. It was this case that Hoover emphasized the importance of forensics and fingerprint analysis, which was dismissed by law enforcement as a speculative science. During Prohibition, he doggedly pursued infamous gangsters like Alvin Karpis, Pretty Boy Floyd, Machine Gun Kelly, and John Dillinger, who was killed by an operation run by Melvin Purvis as depicted in Michael Mann's Public Enemies. Hoover, angered that Purvis was receiving all the attention, derailed his career.
While Hoover made many enemies, he made fewer friends. One of them was Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts), who became his long-time secretary, and Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer), who became Hoover's closest confidant. The two would never miss a meal together and frequently went to the horse races in Del Mar together.
Hoover eventually grows more and more out of touch with society. He ignored organized crime and went after supposed communists, liberals, and journalists who criticized him. He tried to sabotage Martin Luther King's acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, an action that even Gandy and Tolson disagreed with. Throughout it all, Hoover was under the thumb of a domineering mother (Judi Dench), who coldly told him that she would rather have a dead son than a "daffodil."
Hoover supposedly kept secret files containing dirty secrets on many of the country's political leaders. He had a contentious relationship with many presidents and used those secrets to solidify his power base. In the film, he is depicted as blackmailing Franklin Roosevelt as well as John and Bobby Kennedy (the latter of whom is played by Jeffrey Donovan). One of Hoover's few good acts was to entrust Gandy with the destruction of said files upon his death to prevent them from falling into the hands of Richard Nixon.
J. Edgar commits the cardinal sin of biopics by trying to tell far too much in a small amount of time. It doesn't help that Eastwood's explanation for all of Hoover's faults and accomplishments lie with the fact that he was a momma's boy. The film does touch upon the speculation that Hoover and Tolson were homosexuals. Their relationship remains mostly chaste with Hoover reticent to act due to societal morays and his mother's influence. There are forlorn looks and subtle clasping of hands, but no sex involved. The one time the pair does heat up is during a lover's quarrel that unfolds in the most melodramatic fashion with a lot of screaming and broken furniture. The dialogue and hammy acting are on par with a bad soap opera. The same goes for a brief scene where Hoover clutches his late-mother's dress in a reference to his transvestitism.
The narrative's penchant for traveling back and forth in time is made all the more jarring by the unconvincing make-up work to age the actors. While a lot of effort and man hours went into the effects, it never looks realistic, especially the make-up on Armie Hammer as the elderly Tolson. Leonardo DiCaprio doesn't look like a 70-year old Hoover; he just looks like Leonardo DiCaprio under heavy make-up. Speaking of which, DiCaprio's performance is somewhat lacking. Part of that has to do with his eternally cherubic looks. Much like his role as Howard Hughes in The Aviator, DiCaprio excels at playing the younger versions of his characters, but his youthful face and equally youthful voice work against him.
There is a good movie buried somewhere within the confines of the tedious J. Edgar, just as Leonardo DiCaprio is buried somewhere within the confines of his fake jowls and bloated make-up. J. Edgar is a representation of blatant Oscar grabbing cinema, a rare disappointment from Clint Eastwood.
Rating: * ½ (*****)
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