- Film Review
- Reviewed By Brian Pendreigh
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3 out of 5
Unrecognisable beneath his make-up, Leonardo DiCaprio gives a towering performance here as the man who headed the FBI for nearly 40 years. While presidents came and went, J Edgar Hoover maintained and expanded what became his fiefdom. He presented himself as a ruthless crusader against crime, a man above politics, but he was a hate figure to the left and remains controversial in America to this day. But director Clint Eastwood and DiCaprio present him very much as a mummy's boy (with Judi Dench oddly miscast as the mother). His sexuality and an apparent liking for women's clothing have been the subject of much speculation (and ridicule), and Eastwood rather deftly suggests a man who is both naive and repressed, while making it clear that what really drove him was his work - and his ego. That work was the domestic history of the United States in the making. Where the film falls down is in its rather sketchy presentation of that history, its events and characters - it rather assumes contemporary audiences will be familiar with the Lindbergh kidnapping and its impact. Eastwood's film is an excellent portrait of Hoover the man, but is less successful as a portrait of his times.
Plot Summary
FBI founder J Edgar Hoover dictates his memoirs to a young agent. He looks back on his 50-year career as one of America's most powerful and controversial public figures, from his persecution of radical movements he saw as a threat to the nation, his role in several high-profile criminal cases and the influence he wielded over political leaders. Biopic, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Watts, Judi Dench and Armie Hammer.
Cast and crew
Cast
- J Edgar Hoover
- Leonardo DiCaprio
- Helen Gandy
- Naomi Watts
- Charles Lindbergh
- Josh Lucas
- Annie Hoover
- Judi Dench
- Clyde Tolson
- Armie Hammer
- Agent Smith
- Ed Westwick
- Bruno Hauptmann
- Damon Herriman
- Arthur Koehler
- Stephen Root
- Robert F Kennedy
- Jeffrey Donovan
- Harlan Fiske Stone
- Ken Howard
- Dwight Eisenhower
- Gunner Wright
- Lela Rogers
- Lea Thompson
- Colonel Schwarzkopf
- Dermot Mulroney
- Richard Nixon
- Christopher Shyer
- Mitchell Palmer
- Geoff Pierson
- John Condon
- Zach Grenier
- Albert Osborne
- Denis O'Hare
Crew
- Director
- Clint Eastwood
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