J EDGAR

It's weird that the one word I might use to describe this movie, a film about a self-righteous power-hungry demagogue, a film about a closet case who routinely and ruthlessly blackmailed those with any hint of 'moral weakness' in their lives, a film about a man who ran his own ostensibly unaccountable branch of the federal government for almost 50 years, is boring.  It's kinda boring.  And not because it's set in the past.  Director Clint Eastwood is a master at under-laying things, preferring quiet dignity to bombast.  His color scheme is muted, almost black and white, and many if not most of the main characters are total ciphers.

There are scenes at the Del Mar racetrack in the 1930's and the 1960's and I feel that many other films would have gone all out here, with costumes and props and shit just think about it.  recreating a ritzy racetrack from TWO different bygone eras?  That's a dream for the production team!  But in this film, it's all beige and mauve and taupe and light gray and slighter darker light gray.  Maybe that's because Hoover was 'morally gray' but since some of Eastwood's other movies are just as washed up, maybe not.

Some of the characters are wasted opportunities.  Naomi Watts has one early important scene but is then made to stand nearby near-silent for the remainder of the movie.  Armie Hammer as Clyde Tolson doesn't do much but fawn or nag.  J Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson spent nearly everyday together for over 40 years, and although Leo and Hammer have chemistry together they fall short of making us believe that these two could not really spend any time apart form one another.  Tolson seems to be acting as the voice of the reason, of the voice of the audience, questioning the necessity of Hoover's increasingly broad powers.

Judi Dench is not wasted, and her performance is creepy and captivating, but her scenes feel so boiler plate.  She doesn't like "negroes" or "daffodils" or "sinners" and she imparts plenty of kooky weirdness on J Edgar.  Even though I had never heard anything about Hoover's mother or his relationship with her, all of these scenes felt predictable.  Oh well.  Lets see what Clint makes next.


 

  

~ J Edgar Hoover never came out of the closet but his sexuality was such an open secret that the (almost certainly unfounded) rumor that he dressed in drag took hold in the American psyche; this movie indulges the legend but only for one scene that doesn't seem to imply that it was a habit.

~ Clint Eastwood makes movies that I don't think could get made otherwise like Gran Torino or Flags Of Our Fathers or Letters From Iwo Jima.

~ Former Network TV superstars assemble!  Lea Thomspon of Caroline in the City and Stephen Root of Newsradio and King of the Hill.

~ The makeup is not uniformly terrible but we have to see so much of it that it wears out it's welcome pretty quickly.

~ Stephen Root has to be one of the greatest living character actors.

~ The most famous Lithuanian ever, Emma Goldman, turns up briefly in this movie along with other historical cameos that rank from Nixon at the bottom to probably Shirley Temple at the top.

~ Jeffrey Donovan is Clint's go-to-guy for accents, Irish or Bostonian, so he shows up as RFK.

~ This movie actually has a worse depiction of Nixon than Watchmen did, by which I mean, this guy didn't look anything like Nixon.  I laughed out loud when he appeared onscreen.  He has a thick, lustrous full head of hair!  He had more hair then when Alec Baldwin pretended to be Nixon on 30 Rock.

~ The movie has a quite mostly piano score, another Eastwood trademark, which is a welcome departure from the expected patriotic marches and overripe orchestral bombast.

~ Another movie I had very mixed feelings about, Public Enemies, coincidentally featured Billy Crudup in a small role as J Edgar Hoover; I thought he was fantastic and possibly the best part of that movie.

~ The movie's focus doesn't include or mention anything from 1935 until the early 60's frame story.  Hoover himself doesn't even mention those years when proudly rattling off his list of accomplishments to another character.  That's a pity.

~ This review was hard to write.  If I like or don't like something it's easier to write a review, but movies somewhere in between, those are difficult.

~ J Edgar takes his mother and boyfriend to see the 1931 classic The Public Enemy starring James Cagney.  Bland movies should never feature clips from other, more exciting films.