J. Edgar

Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar is an ambitious mess. The controversial founder of the FBI seems like an ideal subject for a biopic, and Eastwood was an interesting choice to direct. But the movie is a failure in almost every regard, from its slapdash storytelling to its fuzzy portrayal of the man himself.

In 1919, John Edgar Hoover (Leonardo Dicaprio) is a young Justice Department clerk. After a bomb nearly kills Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer (Geoff Pierson), Hoover is put in charge of the Bureau of Investigation, rounding up leftists, radicals and aliens for imprisonment or deportation. Hoover is given almost unlimited power as he reshapes the Bureau into an incorruptible fighting force through impossibly high standards, scientific crime solving and canny media promotion. Hoover scores PR successes by fighting gangsters like John Dillinger and catching Bruno Hauptmann (Damon Herriman), kidnapper of the Lindbergh baby. Through it all, though, he's tormented by his relationship with number two man Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer).

J. Edgar Hoover is a fascinating figure, and I'm surprised it took so long for a biopic to be made. Aside from Bureau-promoted propaganda (The FBI Story) and TV movies, his film appearances have been limited. Bob Hoskins' flouncy portrayal of Hoover in Oliver Stone's Nixon was an embarrassment; Billy Crudup's fierce, PR-obsessed portrayal was one of the high points of the recent Public Enemies. Now comes J. Edgar, which makes a dull, ill-judged biopic out of a fascinating man.

The primary culprit is the script. Dustin Lance Black's (Milk) handling of the Hoover-Tolson relationship is speculative but tasteful, even touching. Otherwise, the film fails. A loudly-stated "power corrupts" theme doesn't wash: the young Hoover who orchestrates the Palmer Raids is no different from the old man who squares off with Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. Black's narrative flits between flashbacks, presenting different periods of Hoover's life in parallel. It's an interesting conceit but sloppily done; the film flirts with interesting ideas, but can't settle on a theme or a message. The events it focuses on (the Palmer Raids, Bruno Hauptman, Hoover's vendetta against King) are superficially treated. A facile framing device and unreliable narrator make things even worse.

More telling is what the film leaves out. Aside from the Kansas City Massacre and Hoover's staged arrest of Alvin Karpis (Manu Intiraymi), the film completely skips Hoover's war against John Dillinger and other public enemies. Hoover's massive PR campaign (appearing in films, comic books, radio shows) is only alluded to. Nothing about the FBI's anti-sabotage operations in WWII, the '50s Red Scare or Hoover's coddling of the Mafia. Joe McCarthy is improbably labeled an "opportunist" ("Thank God somebody is doing it!" was the real Hoover's assessment). Of all the Presidents Hoover served under, we only encounter Richard Nixon (an oddly-coiffed Christopher Shyer).

I don't think these are history buff complaints; these are key parts of Hoover's life and career. Watching Hoover's interactions with Presidents, or how he came to view Martin Luther King as no better than Emma Goldman, would have given us more insight into his character, how he became so powerful and why he was so feared. Obviously Eastwood couldn't cover every aspect of Hoover's long career, but the focus is so slipshod, its handling of what it does address so shallow, that this justification doesn't watch. J. Edgar bites off more than it can chew, covering too much and too little at the same time.

Technically the film isn't very interesting either. Eastwood is an assured director but the film's mis-en-scene is monochrome and bland, the staging of key set pieces rote, the score dull. While never quite boring, the film's slow pace and choppy narrative don't generate much interest either.

I was very skeptical of Leonardo DiCaprio's casting but he pulled it off. Dicaprio nails Hoover's self-righteous rigidity, pettiness and repression, and even in old-age makeup he's convincing. But like so much else, he's done in by the script, which allows Hoover little depth or development over 50 tumultous years. This is no fault of DiCaprio, but a screenplay which can't come to grips with its subject.

Armie Hammer (The Social Network) is excellent, mixing moral uprightness with affection for Hoover. Hammer is definitely a comer and this role might net him an Oscar nod. The rest of the cast is wasted. Judi Dench has some nice scenes as Hoover's mom but Naomi Watts's secretary is one-note. The supporting cast has a lot of interesting names but few make an impression. Jeffrey Donovan's (Changeling) testy Robert Kennedy and Stephen Root's (The Conspirator) wood expert make the most of brief screen time, but Dermot Mulroney, Josh Lucas, Geoff Pierson, Ken Howard (Rambo) and Lea Thompson (Howard the Duck) don't register.

J. Edgar feels like a missed opportunity. A movie that had a better sense of who Hoover was could have been a masterpiece. Instead we've got this messy biopic that has little to say about its subject beyond his sexuality. Pity.