Music, Style & Culture

J. Edgar

Clint Eastwood's Hoover biopic is a misjudged and technically ugly movie.

Released in cinemas 20th January 2012.

Clint Eastwood's output as director has been in steady decline since 2008's superb double whammy of Changeling and Gran Torino. Invictus led to last year's absolute shocker Hereafter, a film so inept, it's staggering to think it came from the man who brought us Unforgiven.

So with the eternally classy Leonardo DiCaprio on board, an actor who never puts a foot wrong, J. Edgar is bound to be a winner right? Wrong. This Hoover biopic is another flawed, misjudged and technically ugly movie. Only DiCaprio's increasing gravitas saves it from being another disaster.

Like this month's The Iron Lady, it features a pivotal 20th century figure in their old age reflecting on extremely selective aspects of a powerful, influential career. J. Edgar Hoover founded and ruled over the FBI for almost five decades, with the staunchly right-wing director partaking in Communist witch hunts, spying and blackmail, being both the manipulator and the manipulated. Rumours flew of his closeted homosexuality, with his right-hand man Clyde Tolson his closest and constant companion.

Unlike his searing, poignant screenplay for another biopic, Milk, Dustin Lance Black's script reveals Hoover's ambition, fears and desires in an uninspiringly structured series of recollections for approved memoir stenographers. It plays the unreliable narrative strategy in a far less sophisticated manner than last year's The Social Network, not stretching the imagination by any means. There's little sense of Hoover's enormous impact and megalomania, and his rise to power is explained by his devotion to a bossy mother (Judi Dench), who influences his every step.

While his revolutionary work in fingerprinting and forensics is nicely handled, Hoover's dealings with the Kennedy family are mangled, as is any potential tension to come from the Lindbergh baby-kidnapping case that the memories revolve around. A more sensitive director could've also worked Hoover and Tolson's complicated friendship into something more than melodrama.

For J. Edgar is ostensibly a relationship drama. As Tolson, Armie Hammer impresses as the charismatic, camp protege of Hoover, but is saddled with laughably bad prosthetics as the years pass. Their chemistry and friendship is touching and believable following a shallow introduction, but when the film calls for emotion, the pair are portrayed as a couple of spoilt toddlers throwing tantrums. Naomi Watts is wasted as Hoover's faithful secretary Helen Gandy, whose devotion to the man following a rebuffed marriage proposal is never explained - an actress of Watts' calibre is literally confined to an extra's role, with the odd banal response.

A drab and poorly lit film, it's painful to watch. We're not talking mood lighting here, but an atmosphere-draining, ugly lack of texture. What more disturbing is that there's little sense of Hoover's impact. The younger generation, non-Americans, or anyone not completely au fait with the FBI founder and his dodgy activities will find this a confusing, unsatisfying account.

Rating: 4/10

Watch a scene from J. Edgar below: