J. Edgar

Beaucoup d’effort a été investi dans le montage, le jeu d'acteur, les décors et la stylisation de l'époque représentée. C’est un film nettement plus drôle et plus vivant que Lincoln. Cela dit, il aurait pu accorder plus d’importance à ce qui le rend attrayant auprès du public. La tentative de Hoover d'introduire l'idée subversive de la collecte d'empreintes digitales (le scénario le plus intéressant) n'est pas développée jusqu’au bout et sa liaison physique avec une actrice, dont la description aurait pu aider à expliquer sa sexualité compliquée, est entièrement absente. Et même si la seconde moitié du film traite plus des démons intérieurs et de l’intimité du protagoniste, elle suscite le même intérêt que la ligne policière de la première moitié. Quoi qu’il en soit, ça reste un monument respectable à une figure controversée et sa valeur éducative est indéniable. (04/10/2013)

After a long time, a film where Leonardo’s performance was pretty unconvincing. His J. Edgar Hoover is an unlikeable, arrogant, single-minded prick and closeted homosexual, but all those characteristics felt like a package with the real, lovely DiCaprio hiding inside it the whole time. In The Iron Lady, Meryl Streep really transforms into Margaret Thatcher, but Leo isn’t able to do that under Eastwood’s direction. Otherwise, it’s way too long, told in a not very interesting way (yeah, in the end, the old Hoover proves to be a not very reliable narrator, which illustrates his personality, but until then it’s just boring) and with emotions that never work out. For most of it, instead of paying attention to the film itself, I pondered the question of whether the older (with make up) versions of the protagonists looked like a bloated person who stuck their head in a beehive or more like a horrifying mutant product of crossing human and alien DNA. I was unable to find a straightforward answer. (14/02/2012)

An unpleasant disappointment that Clint had in store for me. I refuse to accuse him of any old-age senility, but even his firm personal style is mired in a dramaturgically-muddled film that only knows what it wants when it touches on a more historically significant event with which Hoover was associated. The rest of the film - though I wasn't expecting some cheap tabloid controversy where he wants to look under the FBI director's skin - is languid and dull, like the old-man mask that underlines the deadness of the actors' performances, and is the perfect repellent to the audience's empathy. God knows why it's as much of a fail for me as Scorsese's Shutter Island was. (16/02/2012)

I don't consider J. Edgar to be the worst Eastwood film, but to make such a below-average spectacle from such an amazing concept and with such an amazing cast is deserving of a few slaps. And when I consider the difference between the result and the ambitions, unfortunately from my point of view, it is Eastwood's biggest directorial failure. Eastwood disappointed me as a storyteller, his direction lacks ideas, and the script is also no masterpiece. When I compare J. Edgar to Il Divo by Paolo Sorrentino, Eastwood embarrassingly fails in the field of biographical films. Maybe it could work as a TV movie, but not as a great story about a great legend of American politics and criminology and the founder of one of the most famous institutions in the USA. Overall impression: 40%. (05/05/2015)

Eastwood’s idiosyncratic depiction of the life of one of the most powerful men of last century. Clear values and clear rules. Both Clint and Edgar stick to firmly traced course of the character development of a proper leading figure, just to get unstuck at the end. The acting performances are wonderful, mainly the could-be old age pensioner Armie Hammer excels and DiCaprio improves the quality of his acting even further. Certain stages in their lives could maybe have been developed better, I mean Dillinger only gets a couple of mentions, but this is a very decent picture. The scene in the Library of Congress library works particularly well. A perfect promotional video for catalog cards. Information is power. (16/02/2012)

Clint Eastwood's direction is, in my opinion, too old-fashioned and extremely slow. The ambient sound and minimalist set design are fine and bearable, but in my view, there was no place for directorial conservatism this time. The story of J. Edgar Hoover should have been gripping and controversial. What the director didn't achieve, he tries to make up for with one of the best performances by Leonardo DiCaprio, currently, one of the best and most complex actors in Hollywood. It's definitely not a complete disaster, and they chose very good material, but the execution is somewhere on the average and significantly lags behind in entertainment value and digestibility. On the other hand, it is sufficiently dramatic and very unconventional in terms of costumes and cold visual aesthetics. (19/08/2012)

Eastwood's J. Edgar reminds me of Spielberg's Lincoln in a lot of ways. Apart from the direction, which is polished to perfection mainly by the camera, its washed-out colors, the gloomy darkness (every intrusion of sharp daylight is unexpected and somehow inappropriate)... And above all the way the story of the main hero is told. Or is hero the right word? It is probably well known to all that the situation around Hoover was complicated. Still, I was surprised at how much of the controversial chapters of his life Eastwood was able to show without in any way justifying Hoover or making him out to be a saint. This is exactly the kind of documentary-style feature film I like. Fiction, discharged by Hoover himself, alternates between known facts so skillfully that you can't tell what is what, and it's up to you to make sense of this dramatic, but still very sensitive and at the same time poignant theatre. I have no complaints about the actors, Leonardo DiCaprio looked convincing even under the layer of retirement latex, while Armie Hammer's make-up artist didn't do that good of a realistic job, but I still bow down to them. (02/03/2013)

Clint Eastwood decided to make a film about one of the controversial and interesting figures in world criminalistics and he said that he would shoot the film coldly, almost without emotions. It's a shame because from the beginning, the viewer has problems getting involved in the plot. Emotions enter the film only in the second half, and I'm not sure if it wasn't a bit too late. Most of the characters have a minimal presence in the film, making it essentially impossible to form a connection with them. Leo convinces me, though, that he can handle any role. He doesn't stand out much here, but the film definitely doesn't fall with him, rather with its boring sterile concept. (15/04/2014)