J. Edgar (2011)

Clint Eastwood has directed more than 30 movies, starred in more than double that and much of this is actually quality. Nevertheless, he makes one of the worst rookie mistakes available here. Don't toss exuberant amounts of information at the viewer in the first ten minutes. And the way he does it is even worse. First of all, there is massive voice-over. Added to that DiCaprio hardly has a scene where he does not explain background material in this period. Thankfully Eastwood also shows a hint of brilliance to introduce Mr. Tolson as a most ominous shadow lurking in Edgar's most controlled environment. A stroke of genius there.

After seeing DiCaprio made up to look old, I caught myself wondering: If they wanted to make him look like an older version of Phillip Seymour Hoffman, why didn't they just use Hoffman? Granted, DiCaprio is a great actor but he can not escape culpability for the biggest fault of this film.

Eastwood must take the main bulk of the responsibility though, as this film seems to get lost in its own way. What is Eastwood really trying to do here? If it's storytelling, then there are too many interruptions of scenes that don't really belong to make any kind of flow. And without a flow, a story can't really unfold. Surely he's not trying to portray Hoover as a person here? Because then he is using the FBI files too much and cutting scenes short where he should have kept going. Half the movie I was trying to understand what Eastwood's aim was as he gave a hint of Edgar's alleged homosexuality, a dash of politics, 3 drops of paranoia and a lot of sheer smartness and an immense gift at seeing and seizing opportunities where they presented themselves.

The only good thing about all that is that you feel like researching Hoover's life as soon as the film is over. Not because the film is good, but because it opens a great many doors without ever really entering the room. It's obvious that he hates communism (don't we all) and is willing to go to great lengths to pursue what he feels is right, but we never even touch how his contempt and paranoia arose, nor do we get anything but glimpses as to have far he really was willing to go.

Apart from Naomi Watts and Armie Hammer there aren't characters worth mentioning here. Thankfully, the latter is absolutely brilliant and outstages DiCaprio in most scenes they share. That could of course be Eastwood's idea all along as Mr. Tolson was supposed to have the swagger as Hoover was utterly in control of himself.

And then, just as you sit there wondering if Eastwood has lost his touch. There it is. In a big-budget movie about a great and influential man, with an exceptional amount of necessary and unnecessary details, listing up all his most famous deeds... The gem is a scene with two dying old men alone in the kitchen. A quiet, dignified, underacted and mesmerizing scene where everything just comes together. And instead of ending it there, Eastwood instead chooses to show a lengthy death scene with some unnecessary wailing. Sigh...

Part political thriller, part drama and part biography, "J. Edgar" does not really deliver fully in any of those genres. Hence it falls in the great pile of good ideas poorly executed.

5/10