J. Edgar (2011)

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

One of the most entertaining ways to learn about history is to see it unfold on the big screen. Sure, a good documentary can be very informative, but with those you're confined to seeing interviews, grainy stock footage and still photos. Some may use reenactments, but they tend to be hokey. The problem with Hollywood history, however, is poetic license. You really never know the historical accuracy of what you are watching. Sometimes, especially with a biopic, you kind of have to apply poetic license in order to make it more entertaining. Sometimes they succeed like the films "Frost/Nixon" (2008) and the George Bush biopic "W." (2008). Sometimes they are accurate and entertaining like "The Aviator" (2004) and "Ray" (2004). The problem with this film is that the facts surrounding the life of J. Edgar Hoover are contested among historians. Mix that in Tinseltown and there's no knowing what's real and what's not. In "J. Edgar" they clearly exploit the juicy rumors of his lifestyle that was taboo at the time, although after doing some research it seems as they these rumors have been disproved. The few facts we can agree on is that J. Edgar Hoover was the brains behind establishing the US FBI as we know it today, and he was a pioneer in forensic science, particularly in his contribution of initializing the creation of a fingerprint database. The film takes us through his life as he politically battles communism and the influence of the Bolsheviks, right through the presidency of Richard Nixon. What more, we learn from the movie that Hoover had a tendency of sensationalizing everything he did. He did it so often he truly began to believe the exaggerated version of events over what really happened. This only farther blurs the lines between reality and fiction. I'm normally not a big Leonardo DiCaprio fan, but I thought he did well with this role. Quite frankly I'm a little surprised he didn't receive more recognition for this role. I thought it was better than some of the other roles he's played that received more merit. I've never heard J. Edgar Hoover speak, but according to this film he had an accent I didn't care for. If that's how he really spoke then so be it, but it was kind of annoying. Hoover lived his entire life in Washington, DC so I'm not sure what the accent was. It sounded almost like Boston, but I think it was supposed to be a slight southern drawl. The bottom line is J. Edgar Hoover led an interesting life. Couple that with some creative screenwriting and you have an entertaining film. Just don't quote this move as a source in an intellectual conversation.

What happened? The whole movie could have been a winning formula - directed by Clnit Eastwood, starring powerhouses like Leonardo DiCaprio, Judi Dench among others, depicting life and work of such awesome man as J. Edgar Hoover was, this film should have been excellent. It didn't happen this way. There are several resaons for this flop: 1. Sheer length - 2 hours killed all the potential. 2. Dark light scheme made the film look rather sickly sepia 3.Weaker parts played by several actors, Armie Hammer particularly, made this film a very uneven unbalanced flick 4. Jumps, plot omissions, certain falsified guesses, obvious manipulations with facts added to a very blurred aray of disapponted meh In general, good idea badly spoilt

Human history has great heroes, great villains and a few people in between. John Edgar Hoover, FBI's father, is one of those obscure and shadowy characters who stands between good and evil. But the most paradoxical is that we know very little about him, despite his towering position and the sheer amount of stories, rumors and theories surrounding him.Clint Eastwood is directed this movie, and the mere fact of making a film about such a vague and amorphous man is a show of courage. On the other hand, it's clearly necessary to take as facts some of the rumors surrounding him. Otherwise, there would be no material to make the film. For example, it's true that Hoover earned a reputation for being homosexual, but the truth is that, against what the film suggests, this fame has never been proven. The film becomes more accurate when it comes to his career, the way he created and developed the FBI, how he promoted forensic science etc. One detail that particularly delighted me was seeing Hoover dictate his memories in a blistering, exaggerated way. With this, the film reveals more than truth... it reveals us what may have been the essence of the personality of a man who has always sought to control what others thought or knew. If knowledge means power, Hoover always made sure no one knew him, or knew only what he wanted. About the script and the story told I just felt some difficulty with the constant flashbacks and flash-forwards. I feel that this hindered my perception of time and the order of events. But that was a minor problem, at least for me.Leo DiCaprio brilliantly secured the lead role. He is an excellent actor and, once again, offered us an excellent performance of a very complicated and ambiguous character. I must also point out his excellent characterization and costume design... this allowed him to play an older, fatter, and grumpier Hoover with the same quality he employed in the ambitious, hard-working boy. Naomi Watts and Armie Hammer were very good at supporting characters, even though Hammer was so ostensibly homosexual that I would have preferred to see him adopting a more contained and ambiguous posture in this regard, leaving the audience to think what they wanted. Equally impeccable and wonderful, Judy Dench gives us a great performance in a character that appears few times, but it marks our mind whenever it appears.For half a century, Hoover was an unassailable man who knew the most sordid secrets of the American elite and did not hesitate to use them to challenge anyone who opposed him. Despite this, he lived his professional and personal life in an extremely discreet way, away from the spotlight, like an office bureaucrat. His life was lived under the motto "knowing is power". That is why he is so vague, Machiavellian and fascinating. And this film, instead of capturing an elusive "truth," perfectly captured the enigmatic and ambiguous side of the man behind the FBI director's desk.

Before watching J. Edgar I, as usually, checked out the IMDb score. I try not to be influenced by it that much, but have to admit that the thought of the low score the movie had received, didn't leave my mind the entire time. And I kept asking myself - is it because of actors, plot, writing or something else? It wasn't a bad movie, but it wasn't a successful one as well. Because I'm not an American, the history of FBI and Hoover was quite unknown for me. And I usually like movies that can teach me something new or at least make me do some research, especially if it's related with historical events and people. But there's a negative side to it as well. Sometimes movies fail to explain simple things in an understandable way and it keeps you in the dark through the whole movie. I had a notion that this is going to be the case, so I opened Wikipedia already from the start and followed the movie time-line and some of the characters. Is it really the task of the audience to read additional materials or it is writer/director that has to provide this information? I don't want to write a full review here, but in short - DiCaprio was excellent as always, but couldn't save the whole movie. Other characters lacked emotion and their personalities weren't deep enough. I lost the confidence and belief because of poor makeup and dark lightning. Not going to watch it again, sorry.