Directed by:
Clint EastwoodScreenplay:
Dustin Lance BlackCinematography:
Tom SternComposer:
Clint EastwoodCast:
Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts, Josh Hamilton, Geoff Pierson, Cheryl Lawson, Kaitlyn Dever, Sadie Calvano, Judi Dench, Josh Lucas, Ed Westwick (more)VOD (1)
Plots(1)
As the face of law enforcement in America for almost fifty years, J. Edgar Hoover was feared and admired, reviled and revered. But behind closed doors, he held secrets that would have destroyed his image, his career and his life. Under the direction of Clint Eastwood, Leonardo DiCaprio stars in the title role of “J. Edgar,” a drama that explores the public and private life of one of the most powerful, controversial and enigmatic figures of the 20th century. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (8)
Clint Eastwood's direction is, in my opinion, too old-fashioned and extremely slow. The ambient sound and minimalist set design are fine and bearable, but in my view, there was no place for directorial conservatism this time. The story of J. Edgar Hoover should have been gripping and controversial. What the director didn't achieve, he tries to make up for with one of the best performances by Leonardo DiCaprio, currently, one of the best and most complex actors in Hollywood. It's definitely not a complete disaster, and they chose very good material, but the execution is somewhere on the average and significantly lags behind in entertainment value and digestibility. On the other hand, it is sufficiently dramatic and very unconventional in terms of costumes and cold visual aesthetics.
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After a long time, a film where Leonardo’s performance was pretty unconvincing. His J. Edgar Hoover is an unlikeable, arrogant, single-minded prick and closeted homosexual, but all those characteristics felt like a package with the real, lovely DiCaprio hiding inside it the whole time. In The Iron Lady, Meryl Streep really transforms into Margaret Thatcher, but Leo isn’t able to do that under Eastwood’s direction. Otherwise, it’s way too long, told in a not very interesting way (yeah, in the end, the old Hoover proves to be a not very reliable narrator, which illustrates his personality, but until then it’s just boring) and with emotions that never work out. For most of it, instead of paying attention to the film itself, I pondered the question of whether the older (with make up) versions of the protagonists looked like a bloated person who stuck their head in a beehive or more like a horrifying mutant product of crossing human and alien DNA. I was unable to find a straightforward answer.
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Eastwood's J. Edgar reminds me of Spielberg's Lincoln in a lot of ways. Apart from the direction, which is polished to perfection mainly by the camera, its washed-out colors, the gloomy darkness (every intrusion of sharp daylight is unexpected and somehow inappropriate)... And above all the way the story of the main hero is told. Or is hero the right word? It is probably well known to all that the situation around Hoover was complicated. Still, I was surprised at how much of the controversial chapters of his life Eastwood was able to show without in any way justifying Hoover or making him out to be a saint. This is exactly the kind of documentary-style feature film I like. Fiction, discharged by Hoover himself, alternates between known facts so skillfully that you can't tell what is what, and it's up to you to make sense of this dramatic, but still very sensitive and at the same time poignant theatre. I have no complaints about the actors, Leonardo DiCaprio looked convincing even under the layer of retirement latex, while Armie Hammer's make-up artist didn't do that good of a realistic job, but I still bow down to them.
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Eastwood’s idiosyncratic depiction of the life of one of the most powerful men of last century. Clear values and clear rules. Both Clint and Edgar stick to firmly traced course of the character development of a proper leading figure, just to get unstuck at the end. The acting performances are wonderful, mainly the could-be old age pensioner Armie Hammer excels and DiCaprio improves the quality of his acting even further. Certain stages in their lives could maybe have been developed better, I mean Dillinger only gets a couple of mentions, but this is a very decent picture. The scene in the Library of Congress library works particularly well. A perfect promotional video for catalog cards. Information is power.
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Clint Eastwood decided to make a film about one of the world's most controversial and interesting criminologists and thought he would make a cold, almost emotionless film. It's a shame because, from the beginning, the viewer struggles to be drawn into the plot. The emotions come into the film only in the second half, and I'm not sure if it wasn't a bit too late by then. Most characters in the film have minimal presence, making it essentially impossible to develop any connection with them. But Leo convinced me that he could handle any role. He doesn't stand out so much here, but the film certainly doesn't fall flat because of it; rather, it's the dull, sterile approach that holds it back.
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