Clint Eastwood directs the film regarding J. Edgar Hoover, the man behind F.B.I and one of the most important men in American history. Portrayed by Leonardo Dicaprio, this is a biographical drama movie with a strong touch of romance onto it.
I will first say that I am a Leonardo Dicaprio fan and ever since hearing Eastwood doing this film with Dicaprio as lead, I really wanted him to get an Oscar out of this (as Oscars tend to love Eastwood) and I feel Dicaprio’s performance here was wonderful. He portrays Edgar as a passionate, compassionate, obsessed and utterly dedicated to his life protecting the United States from all possible threats.
The supporting cast resolves around Edgar’s Mother (played by Judi Dench), Helen Grady (Naomi Watts) and most importantly the partner, right man and lover of Edgar: Agent Clyde Tolson played by Armie Hammer. These characters make the movie and while Edgar’s Mother is only around 7 scenes the most on a 2 hour 20 minute movie, her roles are very important for the character story of J. Edgar and really mold on what kind of an man he becomes to the point he is fighting his inner feelings just to make sure he doesn’t disappoint his Mother.
What I found really great about the story telling format of the movie is that it’s incredibly non-linear, the movie jumps from scene to scene between timelines from 1920s to 1930s to 1970s to all kinds of different periods of Edgar’s life and it creates these great parallels; The subplots, the character stories and everything comes beautifully together and fills the gaps between the scenes wonderfully. It might get a tad bit confusing knowing exactly what year it might be, but that’s not truly important to the story to know what exact year it happens to be. The settings are wonderfully done, the buildings, the inside offices, the cars and the fancy suits and clubs, all beautifully set up. The makeup the cast members also use to show them as old and middle aged from scene to scene we’re incredibly well done too and detailed, you knew it was the same actors but you didn’t get the feeling it was so fake, the suspension of disbelief is there.
Ultimately, what sells this movie entirely to me is the romance plot, it’s just so incredibly powerful and sad too, especially how Edgar’s obsession to keep America save and his paranoia that there are communist enemies all over the United States truly stop him from having a happy life, his constant emotional struggle to never admit his love to Agent Tolson. Eastwood adds this powerful violin song to all important emotional scenes, Dicaprio and Hammer truly sell themselves as great lovers, so it’s no surprise their big admittance of love in a feisty hotel room struggle was my favorite. I mean, how you would feel if you lived in a time where homosexuality and Tran sexuality is frowned upon and not even your own Mother would support it. Edgar’s life was pure hell on an emotional level.
I will say that this movie might be a tad bit long, it’s just that it has that usual Eastwood filming of scenery that really don’t need to be that long nor have that much focus on to begin with, but the movie does close nicely with a good ending in my views.
So yeah, I cried a lot during the movie, but I can easily recommend this movie to everyone. It gives you a good look on America’s history and you can learn about people such as J. Edgar Hoover, Melvin Purvis, John Dillinger, the Lindbergh Kidnapping and all the nasty stuff Edgar did to keep his position among others. I enjoy learning history in a movie; I feel that’s always an added bonus.
), it was just very nicely done by Clint.
