J. Edgar Movie Reviews

It’s absorbing story-telling time. No living director can be as traditional and yet modern a raconteur as Clint Eastwood can. There is a solid plot here narrated with a technical fluidity which has become the signature of the 81-year-old auteur. J. Edgar, the 32nd feature helmed by Eastwood, is an elegiac look-back at a dangerous era of American nationalism when any form of dissent was a sign of ‘subversive radicalism’. Right from the increasingly intolerant 1920s

J Edgar Hoover, the first FBI director and a man instrumental in founding the institution, was someone not many understood, and his life has always been a sort of mystery. There have been speculations and controversies regarding his method of operation, work ethics and even his sexuality. Clint Eastwood’s warts-and-all depiction doesn't take away any of the mystique popularly associated with him. The film is a biopic of Hoover, played by Leonardo DiCaprio

Here is a biopic on one of the most controversial power brokers of the 20th Century: J.Edgar Hoover. As one of the founder directors of the FBI, he called the shots in the agency for some forty seven odd years. But more than his luck and authority going for him, it was his unlimited access to the secret sex lives of all things famous that kept him on the hot seat till his very end. That was a long time back. Today, if it's Clint Eastwood who's dealing with his biography

Even with all the surprises that have characterised Clint Eastwood’s twilight film years, with their crepuscular tales of good and evil, the tenderness of the love story in J Edgar comes as a shock. Anchored by a forceful, vulnerable Leonardo DiCaprio, who lays bare J Edgar Hoover’s humanity, despite the odds and an impasto of old-coot movie make-up, this latest jolt from Eastwood is a look back at a man divided and of the ties that bind private bodies

Clint Eastwood’s biopic of J Edgar Hoover is a remarkably ambitious film. It is ambitious not just because of the long time period it spans — from 1919, when a 24-year-old Hoover was put in charge of a new division under the Department of Justice to investigate the programmes of radical groups, until 1972, when his death ended a controversial 37-year-long career as the director of the FBI — but because it seeks to lay bare a life that was all about secrets

Regarded as one of the most controversial figures in recent US history, the late 'J Edgar' Hoover gets shortchanged with a surprisingly dull biopic from director Clint Eastwood, who appears to have come up with a new cure for insomnia with this deathly boring epic. 'J Edgar' stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Hoover, but the actor plays him with a distracting clipped accent, his face often buried under layers of unconvincing old-age makeup. It's an earnest performance by a committed actor

When director Clint Eastwood was filling J Edgar with pitch perfect makeup, costumes and other accurate artwork, he forgot to add a story that would interest the audience or even keep them awake. This film is not the thrilling, incendiary biography of a great man, but is mostly ponderous and dull, with absolutely nothing to say in its two hours twenty minutes runtime. J Edgar is a rambling and monotonous look at someone whom millions think of as an idol

J. Edgar Review Biz Rating 2/5 stars. What’s Good: Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance; the engaging screenplay. ...