Film Review: "J. Edgar" (2011).

"The most powerful man in the world" is J. Edgar. This biographical drama film directed by Clint Eastwood, and written by Dustin Lance Black. The film centres on J. Edgar Hoover, who was the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for nearly 50 years. Hoover was feared, admired, reviled and revered, a man who could distort the truth as easily as he upheld it. His methods were at once ruthless and heroic, with the admiration of the world his most coveted prize. But behind closed doors, he held secrets that would have destroyed his image, his career and his life.

Born on January 1, 1895, John Edgar Hoover was an American law enforcement administrator turned the first Director of the FBI. In 1924, he was appointed as the director of the FBI's predecessor, the Bureau of Investigation, and was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director for another thirty-seven years until his death on May 2, 1972 at the age of seventy-seven. Hoover has been credited with building the FBI into a larger crime-fighting agency than it was at its inception and with instituting a number of modernizations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories. In addition, Hoover became a controversial figure as evidence of his secretive abuses of power began to surface later in his life and after his death. He was found to have exceeded the jurisdiction of the FBI, and to have used the FBI to harass political dissenters and activists, to amass secret files on political leaders, and to collect evidence using illegal methods. Hoover consequently amassed a great deal of power and was in a position to intimidate and threaten others, including sitting presidents of the United States.

The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts, Josh Lucas, Judi Dench, Dermot Mulroney, and Ed Westwick. Strong performances were given by the cast, especially that of DiCaprio himself. DiCaprio nails the Washington drawl and makes a compelling portrait, elevating the film beyond ordinary. DiCaprio embodied the complex and controversial symbol of authority - the actor had transformed himself considerably and he definitely has charisma to spare and he carries the film with ease.

With J. Edgar, it is fitting, then, that such a quintessentially American director, who through his film personas has become something of a symbol of American authority and abuse of power, should be the one to so thoroughly deconstruct it on screen. There's nothing the least bit expressive or off-putting in Eastwood's lighting or framing. He understands classical film grammar and knows how to deploy it to maximum emotional effect. Black's attempts to dress up this schema in the gay trappings afforded by his subject do nothing to meaningfully pervert the form-or Hoover's complex and controversial psychology. This sturdy, yet simplistic film doesn't really probe the depths of the FBI Director who was known to not only abuse power by exceeding the FBI's jurisdiction, but also to harassed political dissenters and activists, amassed secret files on political leaders, and collected evidence using illegal methods.

Simon says J. Edgar receives: