Full Movie Reviews
Rating of
2.5/4
"J. Edgar" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 05/10/2016
J. Edgar charts the life of the creator and head of the F.B.I. from his Bolshevik-hating youth through to his death during the Nixon years. I was interested to find out more about the almost mythic figure of J. Edgar Hoover but despite direction by the ever sure-footed Clint Eastwood, this biopic comes across as a rather muddled and uneven affair. He is no doubt a difficult personality to pin down; on the one hand he is shown as a dedicated perfectionist who virtually invented forensic investigation and was the scourge of organised crime, on the other a self-aggrandising bully whose paranoia and need for constant control caused him to abuse his powers to a quite shocking degree. It is an interesting story set through 50 years of American recent history and I did feel like I'd learned …
Rating of
3/4
J. Edgar review
Daniel Corleone - wrote on 07/30/2012
J. Edgar Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio) was presented in his youth and twilight years. He informs his mother (Judi Dench) that he becomes the Director for Bureau of Investigation while hiring Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts) as his personal secretary. Hoover then handpicks his division and hires Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer). DiCaprio's performance was spectacular and Dench always impresses. The beginning of how Hoover started was interesting, and then the pace dwindles after he made the personal arrests. Soundtrack was almost non-existent though the camera angles was still solid. It's plot and direction were somewhat confusing since it shifted back and forth too many times in the senior and humble beginnings of J. Edgar. Information about the person was detailed though not as though as it …
Rating of
2/4
Big disappointment
Jase - wrote on 01/19/2012
Dustin Lance Black and Clint Eastwood took what should have been a fascinating story and mangled it into a completely uninteresting movie. In short, it left out so much that should've been on screen and focused on the more boring details. And, while I'm not someone who needs a movie to be linear to enjoy it, J. Edgar is sort of ridiculous. It jumps around far too much and throws too many things at you. There's a voiceover to provide some clarity, but it does little to rectify the problem. Telling the story in a simpler way would've been a better decision, I think.
The lighting is also an issue. I understand the desire to create a dark atmosphere for such a paranoid, depressing character, but it was taken a bit far. You can barely see what's going on in some scenes because the …
