Oh wait. Right. Well, trust me, the movie could have easily gone there.
Seriously though. As is obvious from the title, it's about the life of J. Edgar Hoover, who started the FBI and is pretty much responsible for modern criminology. He's also the reason we use fingerprints as identification, among other things. He was also a paranoid cross-dresser with serious mommy issues, prone to self-promoting exaggeration and was reportedly a closet homosexual. Interesting guy, to say the least. I didn't know too much about him to begin with, which is not an advantageous position to be with this movie because it's pretty unmerciful with backstory.
When the movie started up, I seriously thought it had chapter skipped to the halfway point. You've heard the expression "drop you off in the deep end?" Well, "J. Edgar" fires you out a torpedo tube at the bottom of the Laurentian Abyss. The film has basically made the assumption that we already know these people, and are intimately familiar with their stories. The first time we meet Hoover's secretary, her name is dropped with the same gravity and weight as the bomb over Hiroshima, like it's some earth-shattering revelation that everyone in the audience is supposed to gasp at. THIS is it! THIS is the moment you've been waiting for! Oh yeah. Because everybody knows Ms. Gandy, J. Edgar Hoover's secretary. She's an American icon!
Eventually we do get to know these people, but unless you're really up on your 1920's U.S. government history, "J. Edgar" really doesn't hold your hand. You get the feeling that this movie was made for people who already knew Hoover's story backwards and forwards. In that way, it reminded me a bit of the equally tepid "Public Enemy" with Johnny Depp. I'm not saying I don't care about history, or am unwilling to learn about it, but I was born in 1983. And I'm sorry, neither John Dillinger or J. Edgar Hoover are intensely studied subjects in school to the point where you know his cohorts, friends and enemies by a first name basis.
All I'm saying is, cut us some slack, Clint. Not all of us were around when J. Edgar Hoover was learning his "ABCs."
That was a "Clint Eastwood is old" joke. You may laugh/applaud as needed.
Aside from the mountain of information given to us, not helping matters is the fact that chronology is all over the place in "J. Edgar." The film is framed in the form of Hoover giving interviews to someone writing a book about him. We get a little bit of talking and then it flashes back to what he was talking about. On top of that are constant voice-overs of Hoover talking to...nobody in particular that seem to come and go at random. It's quite similar to "Interview With The Vampire" in that respect. And yes, it IS kind of annoying!
One thing that "Interview With The Vampire" had going for it that "J. Edgar" does not, however, is the fact that Brad Pitt doesn't age. DiCaprio is forced to wear what has to be 50 lbs of makeup for most of the film, and it just looks ridiculous. In fact, when he is portraying old J. Edgar Hoover, he looks just like Philip Seymor Hoffman. I am not joking. It's hilarious. I half expected him to start saying "I'm a fuggin' idiot. I'm a fuggin' IDIOT! Fuggin' IDIOT!" at any moment.
Either Philip Seymor Hoffman or the Gerber Baby after falling into a vat of silly putty...
The most ridiculous makeup job, however, was anytime Armie Hammer appeared as the older Clyde Tolson, J. Edgar Hoover's BFF. This dude comes on screen looking like Lord Voldemort. And no matter how good the makeup department was, they couldn't change the fact that the entire cast looked like people in their 30's dressed up like people in their 70's. It just didn't work.
So what did I learn about J. Edgar Hoover from "J. Edgar?" You really get the feeling, based on DiCaprio's performance, that Hoover must have been an intensely unhappy person, which probably stemmed from his homophobic mother planting the notion in his head that "gay equals evil." Imagine how different the country might have been if one woman's prejudice didn't exist, meaning her son could have accepted the way he was born and been happy and gotten laid.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Speaker of the House...
Awesome.
THE BOTTOM LINE - "J. Edgar" is a boring, not well constructed story about someone who is a much more interesting character than the movie gives him credit for. There is a good movie to be had from the story, but this movie kind of has it's head up its ass, and needed more focus. Skip it.
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