J Edgar

[Westside Steve]

Here's a guest review from my pal Donny Thompson.

 

 

 

My personal review:

 

 

M'eh.

 

I wasn't aware that it was an Eastwood film until the end credits, (I walked in about two minutes after the opening credits) and I was disappointed by this, because I normally like Clint's work - Grand Turino, Flags of Our Fathers, Million Dollar Baby, I thought were all very good films.

 

This one was very weak.

 

Not much to spoil here, as most know by now, Hoover was a control freak who used pretty much any means necessary -both legal and illegal - to discredit, imprison and deport anyone who he felt didn't adhere to his ideals.

 

On the other hand, he was very instrumental in setting up early forensics, fingerprinting and crime scene etiquette; and the credit should go to him for bringing detective work out of the dark ages and into the modern day using science and technology. He was also a master logistical organizer. He has been credited for setting up the national fingerprinting data base, and organizing the mountains of data into what became a very well thought out process before the days of computers...no small task.

 

He spent his life in pursuit of "Bolsheviks"... his common term for anyone who was considered to be subversive based on his own criteria, whether they were communist or not.

 

He held private files filled with dirt on some very influential people throughout the 20th Century, everyone from JFK and his trysts with Marilyn, to Eleanor Roosevelt and her alleged lesbian affairs... I find this laughingly hypocritical, considering that Hoover shared a relationship with his "right hand man" ( pun intended) Clyde Tolson for 40+ years; that by all accounts was homosexual in nature.

 

The film, aside from the fact that DiCaprio looks as much like Hoover as I do, dropped the ball on several historical time periods that I felt were important in regard to the FBI during the Hoover years; events that I personally thought should have been shown; or at least given a nod to, like HUAC and The Communist witch hunts, Hoover's blatant disregard of organized crime, as well as his ousting of "Super G Man" Melvin Purvis - because Purvis was the agent who finally got Dillinger, and then got the spotlight - and Hoover didn't.

 

I would have also liked to have seen at least a nod given to the main event that put Hoover in the FBI's Director chair: The Teapot Dome Scandal during the Harding administration was the main reason that President Calvin Coolidge fired existing director William Burns (who had been involved in the scandal) and had it not been for the Burns being thrown out of office, Hoover would have likely faded into Justice Department obscurity.

 

Instead, the film seemed to focus on events for longer periods than I felt were necessary in regard to Hoover - the Lindbergh Baby kidnapping, for example, took up nearly a half hour of the film.

Was it an important event in history? Yes. Was it important in the scope of being related to Hoover and dedicating nearly a half hour of the film to it? Not in my opinion.

 

Also, other character representations, including what might be the absolute worst depiction of Nixon I've ever seen, (this Nixon made Anthony Hopkin's Nixon look like Nixon himself) were very weak and seemingly thrown together with no real regard to similarity in either physical appearance or vocal mimicry, including DiCaprio's performance of Hoover...virtually no resemblance whatsoever, other than a badly aging make-up job that you might see at a local theater.

And, Leo's vocal mimicry of Hoover sounded very much like DiCaprio's version of Howard Hughes doing a version of Hoover.

 

 

I'm a fan of historical films and period pieces, so maybe I'm more critical than the average movie-goer, but then again I'm not so sure that this film would be one that the average movie-goer would go to see anyway.

 

I give it a 5.

[Zombo]

Here's a guest review from my pal Donny Thompson.

 

 

 

My personal review:

 

 

M'eh.

 

I wasn't aware that it was an Eastwood film until the end credits, (I walked in about two minutes after the opening credits) and I was disappointed by this, because I normally like Clint's work - Grand Turino, Flags of Our Fathers, Million Dollar Baby, I thought were all very good films.

 

This one was very weak.

 

Not much to spoil here, as most know by now, Hoover was a control freak who used pretty much any means necessary -both legal and illegal - to discredit, imprison and deport anyone who he felt didn't adhere to his ideals.

 

On the other hand, he was very instrumental in setting up early forensics, fingerprinting and crime scene etiquette; and the credit should go to him for bringing detective work out of the dark ages and into the modern day using science and technology. He was also a master logistical organizer. He has been credited for setting up the national fingerprinting data base, and organizing the mountains of data into what became a very well thought out process before the days of computers...no small task.

 

He spent his life in pursuit of "Bolsheviks"... his common term for anyone who was considered to be subversive based on his own criteria, whether they were communist or not.

 

He held private files filled with dirt on some very influential people throughout the 20th Century, everyone from JFK and his trysts with Marilyn, to Eleanor Roosevelt and her alleged lesbian affairs... I find this laughingly hypocritical, considering that Hoover shared a relationship with his "right hand man" ( pun intended) Clyde Tolson for 40+ years; that by all accounts was homosexual in nature.

 

The film, aside from the fact that DiCaprio looks as much like Hoover as I do, dropped the ball on several historical time periods that I felt were important in regard to the FBI during the Hoover years; events that I personally thought should have been shown; or at least given a nod to, like HUAC and The Communist witch hunts, Hoover's blatant disregard of organized crime, as well as his ousting of "Super G Man" Melvin Purvis - because Purvis was the agent who finally got Dillinger, and then got the spotlight - and Hoover didn't.

 

I would have also liked to have seen at least a nod given to the main event that put Hoover in the FBI's Director chair: The Teapot Dome Scandal during the Harding administration was the main reason that President Calvin Coolidge fired existing director William Burns (who had been involved in the scandal) and had it not been for the Burns being thrown out of office, Hoover would have likely faded into Justice Department obscurity.

 

Instead, the film seemed to focus on events for longer periods than I felt were necessary in regard to Hoover - the Lindbergh Baby kidnapping, for example, took up nearly a half hour of the film.

Was it an important event in history? Yes. Was it important in the scope of being related to Hoover and dedicating nearly a half hour of the film to it? Not in my opinion.

 

Also, other character representations, including what might be the absolute worst depiction of Nixon I've ever seen, (this Nixon made Anthony Hopkin's Nixon look like Nixon himself) were very weak and seemingly thrown together with no real regard to similarity in either physical appearance or vocal mimicry, including DiCaprio's performance of Hoover...virtually no resemblance whatsoever, other than a badly aging make-up job that you might see at a local theater.

And, Leo's vocal mimicry of Hoover sounded very much like DiCaprio's version of Howard Hughes doing a version of Hoover.

 

 

I'm a fan of historical films and period pieces, so maybe I'm more critical than the average movie-goer, but then again I'm not so sure that this film would be one that the average movie-goer would go to see anyway.

 

I give it a 5.

 

Saw it last night. Your "5" was generous. I was disappointed. And I like historical films too.

 

Brokeback G-Men.

 

Zombo

--Steve woulda cried.