J. Edgar -- Film Review

J. Edgar

Directed by Clint Eastwood

This is a sanitized, sympathetic portrayal of J. Edgar Hoover, founder and director of the FBI until his death in 1972.  Leonardo DiCaprio does an excellent job of creating the character.  It is hard to present a biography of a person with such a long, varied and controversial career as J. Edgar Hoover in two hours, and this film is an ambitious attempt to present an overview of his entire life.  It is too much to cover in too short a time.  The result is a sketchy, superficial treatment.  Some of the facts are presented, but the way it is all put together and served up I had the feeling I was watching well crafted propaganda.  It was like eating a well prepared, delicious meal that has been laced with poison that is very hard to detect.  This image of Hoover as the crusader against "subversives," the defender of America against the forces of evil and anarchy, which was most aggressively promoted by Hoover himself, is allowed to stand as a prevailing theme in the film that is not seriously challenged.  The paranoia, bigotry, and blind hatred that was so characteristic of his personality -- and which was played out in many of the FBI's investigations, particularly of celebrities and politicians -- are played down.  Although the darker side of Hoover's character is not ignored, it is smoothed and softened and set in a context that makes him come off as much more normal and positive and benevolent than he actually was.  His personal life is treated sympathetically; the relationship with his mother has likely been extensively revised and normalized, and his sexuality, which is very controversial, is only alluded to in the vaguest suggestions.  All together this film is a well made, distorted, selective presentation of Hoover that did stimulate my interest in him, but at the same time made me very skeptical and suspicious and left me with the feeling that I was being bamboozled.