J Edgar
Review by Anthony Morris
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J Edgar
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For a while there was a tradition of Hollywood making big, serious
biopics about big, serious figures from American history. Oliver
Stone led the charge with JFK and Nixon, but films covering the lives
of everyone from Malcolm X to Jimmy Hoffa hit the screen for a while
there. And then they stopped, though Stone took one last stab at it with W, which makes J Edgar a throwback in more ways than one. Looking
at the life of the creator and first director of the FBI, J Edgar
Hoover (Leonardo DeCaprio, often under a lot of aging make-up),
director Clint Eastwood wanders over a hefty chunk of the 20th century,
going from Hoover's early days fighting communist terrorists after the
First World War and his single-handed creation of the FBI to fight
depression-era criminals right up to his increasingly dubious efforts
against "enemies" like the Kennedys, Martin Luther King and Richard
Nixon towards the end of his career. It's a relatively
balanced portrait of an extremely divisive figure : his early
experiences with extremists led him to see threats everywhere long
after the world had moved on, and his own closeted personal life – he
may not have been openly gay, but his relationship with Deputy Director
Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer) certainly verged on love – didn't encourage
him to treat the world with trust either. Add in an
overbearing mother (Judi Dench) and a lust for fame and it’s little
wonder that the story Hoover's trying to tell (the movie is partly told
through his recollections to a string of agents trying to write his
self-serving "official" biography) doesn’t always overlap with
reality. It's as a portrait of a person trapped by fear
that this really works; you may not like Hoover the public servant, but
it’s hard not to feel something for Hoover the man.
3 out
of 5
J Edgar
Australian release: 26th January,
2011
Official
Site: J Edgar
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Watts, Armie Hammer, Dermot Mulroney, Ed Westwick, Jeffrey Donovan, Josh Lucas
Director: Clint Eastwood
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