J.Edgar

J.Edgar is one of those infrequent Hollywood delights, where a smattering of big names does result in a masterpiece. With bad-boy Clint Eastwood directing, half the battle was won. The movie was a delight to look at with the near perfect depiction of post WWII America. Clint does take his period movies seriously.
Leonardo DiCaprio was good, but did not perform to expectation. As the young Edgar, he was class; but the highlight of old-man Hoover was only his makeup. His walk and talk remained exactly the same as that the 24 year old who joined the Bureau of Investigation.
Full credit to the makeup artists, but the one man whose acting and body language changed parallel to the non-linear screenplay was Armie Hammer, who played Clyde Tolson (Hoover’s no.2 man). Sheer brilliance. He should at least be nominated for best supporting actor at the academy awards.
The man who stood out for being horrible was Jeffrey Donovan. In just over a minute of screen time, I could see that he wasn’t being Robert Kennedy; he was still the burnt spy from the TV show he leads in.
I loved that Eastwood didn’t portray Hoover as a good guy or a bad guy, but showed him as a human being who had the best interests of his people in mind to the point of paranoia, and was highly motivated, while at the same time operating with agendas and biases, and hiding a number of skeletons in the closet.
Before watching this movie, all I knew of Edgar was from a tour guide in Washington DC who told me that he was the longest serving director of the FBI, and was responsible for giving it the teeth it has now. After the movie; I’ve realized that he is the reason not just for America’s stringent crime prevention and legal system, but is also responsible for Hollywood’s portrayal of the secret services. Hoover was the man who put FBI officials in cereal boxes, comic books, movies, and TV shows; and got kids to dream of joining the FBI one day. He is the reason foreigners such as myself have a fearful respect of the rules in America; while possessing a nonchalance at home.
If the Hindi, Tamil and various other regional film industries in India made movies depicting RAW, CBI, and state police departments using realistic themes instead of the jaded honest government official, that respect might just be inculcated about the Indian system too.

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