Yeah, I've read the rave reviews of this endlessly tedious telling of J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI who spent a career battling commies, ignoring the mafia, and spying on everyone. Yeah, I'd heard he was a gay crossdresser. Exciting slice of history, you say? Should be a fun movie.
Think again.
Leonardo DiCaprio tries hard but if you look at the real Hoover it should be easy to see that Leonardo lacks the gravitas (just as he did in "The Aviator") to inhabit the role and that's not the worst of it. The worst is it is a sepia colored bore that goes on and on and on and a director who knows a thing or two about moral ambiguity, Clint Eastwood fails to make J. Edgar either a modern tragedy or a camp fun out. It is just a relentless and this happened told in a series of flashbacks of mama's boydom, unrequited lust and dark doings.
Hoover was a mama's boy who was made the head of the nascent by the attorney general.And he
1. Took on the homegrown commie movement and won.
2. Brought policing up to date with stuff like fingerprinting.
3. Went after 1920s gangsters and won.
And then spent the rest of his career being the most feared man in DC,
In his personal life, his great love was his second in command, played by Armie Hammer (he was the twins in "The Social Network", although besides a kiss, Eastwood portrays their love repressed in the extremes. Maybe because Edgar's mom tells him she'd rather have a dead son than a "daffodil".
It is all some what on the speculative side, but it should at least be interesting and fun. There is no reason for this miserable, slack paced story told in sepia colored flashback.
Not much music either, some chamber music played in the background when he lived with his mom, smooth smooth jazz during some nightclub scenes. "I Only Have Eyes For You" is on the closing credits.
Movie: C+
Music: C-