Clint Eastwood’s woeful, inept biopic J. Edgar may not be the worst movie he’s ever made (that’s debatable), but it’s so histrionic, one-sided and unserious that it will stand as the Mommie Dearest of G-man pictures.
J. Edgar is a “Please don’t” picture; mentally, you’ll find yourself saying “Please don’t” when, for instance, Eastwood shows Leonardo DiCaprio’s J.Edgar Hoover lounging around in silky dressing gowns with Clyde Tolson (a campy Armie Hammer, who played the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network) making bitchy remarks about Desi Arnaz’s shoes. Please don’t, Clint. And if a squabble should break out between the two of them, please don’t let it end with Clyde straddling a breathless and sweaty Edgar on the floor and forcefully kissing him.
Yet that’s exactly what happens, and it’s not even the worst scene in this dreadful movie. That honor must go to the soon-to-be-notorious scene in which Edgar, stricken by the death of his domineering, gay-hating mom (Judi Dench), puts on first her necklace, then her dress, then breaks down in tears.
We can take J. Edgar Hoover as a self-aggrandizing creep who abused his authority and served eight presidents, mostly as FBI chief, by making them fear he might blackmail them with his confidential files. But must he also be a crybaby?
DiCaprio is awful. He spends most of the movie under about four inches of makeup as he plays Hoover in the 1960s, reflecting on his youth while trying to bring down Martin Luther King Jr. and blackmailing the Kennedy brothers. The device of Hoover telling his life story for posterity, which screenwriter Dustin Lance Black effectively used in his Oscar-winning script for Milk, this time feels forced and false, not to mention stiff and unoriginal. An FBI agent who takes down Hoover’s reminiscences keeps cross-examining and second-guessing him, as indeed do virtually all of the characters Hoover encounters in the movie.
The incessant attacks on Hoover that constitute this movie don’t even fit together. If he was such a terrifying, nearly omnipotent figure, why does everyone he meets feel free to tell him everything he’s doing wrong?
Considering all the attacks Eastwood has attempted to deflect up until the film’s release, I must say that I am surprised that it turned out this way. I did not care for his Iwo Jima films, but Gran Torino was exceptional.
To be honest, I look at Public Enemies as a great missed opportunity. It was intended to be a series focusing on various figures but was instead condensed into the one film. Bale did a horrible SC accent (too thick), but the acting was top notch from all the leads. In fact, I would wager that Crudup’s Hoover gave a better sense of the man in ten minutes than DiCaprio’s did in two hours.
The stuff about Hoover listening to MLK having sex sounds like a pastiche of the Jackie Kennedy revelations from a few months ago. Doesn’t sound like the movie I want to see.
I thought Public Enemies was alright: Crudup was good playing Hoover. The screenplay rearranged the timeline of events, and condensed things a lot. This made especially Baby Face Nelson essentially a supporting character, which he really wasn’t. After all, he’s the guy who killed the most senior FBI agent to die in the line of duty in the Bureau’s history. They also completely left out Bonnie & Clyde, who were in the book (and who Dillinger dismissed as a pair of kids stealing grocery money) and put Pretty Boy Floyd’s death before everyone else’s, when in reality he died after the rest.
The book also had a fascinating prologue, told from the POV of Alvin Karpis, lounging on a beach in Spain, retired, in the early ’70s. Fascinating: the man worked with Dillinger and those other guys, and taught Charles Manson to play the guitar (yeah, really) but refused to use contacts he had to help Charlie with his music career, once he got out of prison. Charlie of course turned to other pursuits instead.
Not….enough…brain bleach
Actually this film was done years ago. It was Woody Allen’s “BANANAS.” In the trial scene a large black women in a red dress testifies. She avers that her name is J.Edgar Hoover. She is not gainsaid. “Banana’s” which featured Woody playing cello in a marching band,is probably his best film.
The movie with Woody Allen playing the cello in a marching band isn’t Bananas, but Take the Money and Run. For what it’s worth.
To me, “Best Woody Allen Film” is kind of like “Best Root Canal”.
I don’t care about the movie. What is more important is that Hoover wrote a book in which he called for labor unions to be legitimate and signficant parts of the American scene, and that he was alert to communist subversion in America, but perhaps unevenly so. We did not fight the Cold War with all the weapons at hand. Read Revel, How Democracies Perish, which I synopsized here: http://clarespark.com/2011/04/09/jean-francois-revel-and-father-mapple/. Will a future biographer of J. Edgar Hoover have unimpeded access to the historical record or will it be entirely redacted?
One good thing came from the film. I am still laughing with this review.
I like the old times too but never intended to see this turkey.
BTW …TBBG, Gran Torino was a wreck. It was a fine idea for a story…but poorly executed…esp.acting.
Doesn’t anyone have the courage to remake Laura or Dorian Gray?
One of the reasons I don’t watch many movies is that, ever since the 70s or so, the actors and actresses don’t have the bearing and demeanor of adults. They ALL come across like oversized toddlers.
Ernest Borgnine would have been perfect for that role. Is there a younger Ernest Borgnine among the Hollywood glitterati these days? No.
I’ve noticed the same thing. Few leading men in Hollywood today have the on screen gravitas of a Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, William Holden, Cary Grant. I doubt an actor like John Wayne could even get work in Hollywood these days.
Not true. John Wayne could only play John Wayne. We have MANY actors with that current range.
Precisely. Orlando Bloom, Depp, DiCaprio, Damon, Affleck (who can’t really be called an actor), Ferrell (ditto), Roseanne Barr and a host of other modern Hollywood types are anything but leading men.
We have to import our leading men from Australia. Heck, Liam Neeson (Mr. Sensitive for his whole career) transformed himself into a superhero in his old age (Taken and The A Team) better than the vaunted diCaprio has done with Hughes and Gangs Of New York.
And if he thinks I’m even going to rent his Hoover so I can help him advance the homosexual agenda, think again.
Clint: want to do something Really Edgy? How about a take on The Jerry Sandusky Story? It’s got everything Hollywood loves: pushing new frontiers; trashing of societal norms; unconventional relationships; approval of NAMBLA. Oscar gold.
“Oversized Toddlers.”
Yes, that’s it precisely. But, contrariwise, many of them keep attempting to portray real men doing real things, and it doesn’t work well in most cases. Like an ill-fitting suit, no adjusting it will hide the fact.
I’m not terribly surprised though, given the demographic they try to “entertain.” Say whatever you will, there’s something, well, swishy about a generation who takes routine little activities we all did in the 50s and 60s and 70s, such as skateboarding, or jumping trash cans on our Stingray bikes – but has to label them all as “extreme.” It seems there’s some masculinity uncertainty going on there, and witthout a doubt, their Hollywood “role models” bear much of the blame.
So, is it okay to be gay? Or is it only okay if you’re not J. Edgar Hoover. Will Clint Eastwood follow up with a frank drama called BARNEY?
Bwarney Fwank at your Swervice!
Procurer and Drug Dealer to the Elected “Class”
Made the “Judical Watch Most Corrupt” Congress Critters 2010
Fanny Mae Freddy Mac wing thsome bells Bwarney?
Come to thing of it, Clint would have been Better Choosing Barney Frank for the Hoover Bash! Looks more like a Gay J.Edgar than that dipstick Leo
Masters of Deceit: The Story of Communism in America and How to Fight It
I recently purchased an original copy of this book from a used bookstore. J. Edgar Hoover is another in the long list of conservative America-firsters that have been vilified by the Democratic Mainstream Media. He gives a mound of evidence in this book about Communist/Socialist front organizations that were either infiltrated or founded by communists from the 1920′s to the late 1950′s when this book was written. This book should be a must-read for every high school student in America so they can identify their tricks and tactics. Unfortunately, with how our national Republican and Democratic Representatives trample on the Constitution, it may be too late.
If Hoover was a freak, a monster, and a lout, not to mention a loathsome, craven, malicious, duplicitous, paranoid twerp, does that mean old gay men are freaks, monsters, and louts, not to mention loathsome, craven, malicious, duplicitous, paranoid twerps? Wow, I just thought Eastwood was describing Nancy Pelosi. Hmmm, I wonder if DiCaprio looks like Pelosi in a dress? Maybe, just maybe.
Didn’t think Eastwood would make such a lousy movie. At his age, he’s probably just mailing them in right now hoping they will work with the audience. A shame, really, because Hoover may have been a lousy person, but he was still a fascinating individual in American History. Pity a better movie wasn’t made about him.
>You would think that, if Hoover was gay, that would be a redeeming quality.
Gay is only a redeeming quality if one’s politics are on the Left. A conservative who is gay is portrayed as a hypocritical creep or a sexual predator, or worse.
Again, politics trumps everything.
Oh goody, another dress-up flick for Leonardo DeCaprio, or is it Matt Damon? … Brad Pitt? Whatever, there’s not a dime’s difference between any of them.
bread: Laura WAS remade. Go rent “Sharky’s Machine”.
Clint Eastwood’s woeful, inept biopic J. Edgar may not be the worst movie he’s ever made (that’s debatable), but it’s so histrionic, one-sided and unserious that it will stand as the Mommie Dearest of G-man pictures.
Gran Torino was the worst movie I’ve ever seen. Everything about it was awful. Nobody in it could act; the dialog was horrendously schmaltzy and crude; and the plot was utterly unconvincing. Everything about it was false, forced, and hackneyed. I watched most of it on fast-forward, writhing in agony.
Hereafter was almost as lousy. Again, Clint can’t direct anyone anymore. The acting was horrendous, and the dialog rotten.
I won’t bother with J. Edgar. I’ve learned my lesson.
what suprises me is that it comes as a shock to so many that hoover was possibly a cross-dresser and that his relationship with tolson involved more than business. should eastwood have just omitted those aspects of hoover’s life in this biopic? i have to wonder if all this hand-wringing isn’t just another in the series of over-reactions to anything in popular entertainment that isn’t 100 percent hetero.
The issue is not that Hoover “may” have been gay, it’s that it is a never-verified rumour, and it is being used as a kind of arms-length smear against a man despised by the left. I find it odd that today’s lefty gays and their liberal friends behave in much the same way as old-timey homophobes, using accusations of closeted homosexuality as a weapon against people they hate. As for Eastwood, no matter how gravelly his voice and how rugged his face, it’s become clear that it’s all an act, and he has drunk deeply of the Hollywood Kool-Aid.
I knew it was going to be a screaming disaster of doom when NPR did their breathless little love piece on it.
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/07/142093689/j-edgar-at-the-fbi-many-a-question-about-hoover
The biggest misconception about Clint Eastwood is that he still makes good movies. That hasn’t been true for at least 25 years. “Heartbreak Ridge” was his last enjoyable film IMO. His directorial skills have always been suspect but he has gotten progressively worse. He should opt for retirement.
Have you ever noticed that Clint somehow magically became a filmmaker of great genius at precisely the same time he began his leftward drift away from his lifelong conservo-libertarianism? Yes, before he discovered moral relativism and the evil legacy of Western Civilization, Eastwood was considered by the bi-coastal chatterers to be every bit as big a fascist Philistine as Joe Scarborough before that Bama Idiot Boy won the Rachel Maddow Wannabe Award. But since Clint has embraced liberal moral confusion and America’s shameful oppression of the entire human race, he’s as socially, professionally and politically acceptable as Spielberg, Lucas and Coppola.
Wow, some coincidence!
Funny how none of you mentioned that Eastwood likes Herman Cain among the Republican presidential candidates.
Its not surprising that Eastwood did a hit piece on Hoover. For Eastwood, his hatred for Hoover is personal. In 1969, while filming “Paint Your Wagon”, Eastwood began an affair with his co-star Jean Seberg. Later, Seberg (a typical Hollywood lefty) was targeted by Hoover for personal destruction because of her affiliation with the Black Panther Party and the Communists. The career-ending scandal of it all contributed to her suicide. Eastwood probably blamed Hoover and just couldn’t rest until he deconstructed Hoover’s reputation. Everyone that has anything to do with Hollywood nowadays have become such irritating bores, including Eastwood. Such a shame…
Why would you expect anything less coming out of Hollywood. Conservative leaning actors and actresses must keep under wrap or won’t easily get work. Hollywood is lousy with liberals and commies who hate America and want her neutralized at every step. Maybe if Hoover was still alive we wouldn’t have been caught with our pants down on 9/11.
But what happened to Hollywood. During WWII you had major stars in the service, there’s Bette Davis doing a news reel about buying war bonds. Now all they do is ridicule everything that America represents.
I wondered about this myself until I realized that hollyweirdos haven’t changed a bit. Remember that Roosevelt was a liberal democrat. It was THEIR war and we were allied with the USSR.
Think about it…..
So, lolly, are you saying that the Axis were good guys who were just misunderstood? Surely, you cannot. The war was everyone’s not just FDRs or the liberals.