He was one of the most powerful men in the United States. He was head of the FBI for fifty years, was instrumental in building the agency, and is credited with some of the most significant advances in modern crime fighting. But J. Edgar Hoover was also a ruthless man who was not afraid to use the results of his work to influence senators and even presidents. To that end, there are all sorts of stories surrounding his concealed homosexuality, his penchant for wearing women's clothing, and his relationship with his rather domineering mother. J. Edgar Hoover, then, was a very complex, complicated man whose life is now the focus of veteran director Clint Eastwood's latest directorial effort.
J. Edgar takes a brave, but also somewhat difficult, approach. The film wants to show events as Hoover saw them, but at the same time as they really were. And that makes for some confusion at times. Framing the life story are the ambitions of an aging J. Edgar Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio), who dictates his memoirs to young FBI agents. To ensure that none of them know too many of the sometimes explosive secrets, the young scribes are rotated out after each chapter. Hoover tells how he fought communism in America as a young man. Of the founding of the FBI, the creation of a fingerprint index, and, of course, a key event in his career: the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. The resolution of the case, which Hoover of course took upon his own banner, caused the public's regard for the FBI and its agents to skyrocket.
But the film takes the professional events primarily as a buttress for a much more intimate story about a man around whom many myths and rumors still swirl to this day. As such, Eastwood's portrait is only incidentally an extremely interesting piece of American history, one of which you'll want to find out more about after watching the film.
First and foremost, however, J. Edgar is an acting tour de force. What Leonardo DiCaprio delivers here deserves the utmost respect. Whether as a young man fighting the Bolshevik invasions or as an aging FBI chief - a tour de force by the makeup artists - DiCaprio perfectly manages to bring the various facets of J. Edgar Hoover to the screen. Especially the scene in which he could actually once openly admit his homosexuality and his love for Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer, whose old-man make-up, however, in contrast to DiCaprio's little convincing), but yet is so trapped in the morals that his mother (Judi Dench) has hammered into him over the years that he pushes his closest confidant away, is quite great cinema.
However, despite the inherently interesting story and acting performances, J. Edgar is one of the weaker films Clint Eastwood has directed in recent years. Apart from the length, the movie gets lost too often in details that don't really seem to be important, while other, maybe much more interesting aspects are passed over too quickly. Too often you get the impression that Eastwood still handled J. Edgar Hoover with kid gloves and not even scratched the surface of what could have been illuminated in terms of character and professional abysses. On the other hand, Eastwood deserves credit for not focusing on the more scandalous stuff just to attract as much attention as possible.
The biggest problem J. Edgar will have to contend with, at least outside of the US, is the question of who is actually supposed to care about this movie. Those who are rather unfamiliar with the character J. Edgar Hoover and American crime fighting before C.S.I. will have a hard time here, as some events and historical facts are simply assumed to be known. And most viewers in Germany will probably have a problem with that. In addition, the film is rather a slowly told drama and not a real suspense cinema, as the trailer may suggest.
But apart from that it can be said as a conclusion that the cinematic examination of J. Edgar is definitely worthwhile, that Leonardo DiCaprio delivers a first-class performance and that the film arouses the interest of some to deal more intensively with J. Edgar Hoover, the history of the FBI and the domestic politics of the USA in the 20th century. And exactly for it there is then despite the lengths and weaknesses still a deserved: Worth seeing!
