J. Edgar GENRE - DRAMA PREMISE (Copied from IMDB) - Biopic of J. Edgar Hoover told by Hoover as he recalls his career for a biography. Early in his career, Hoover fixated on Communists, anarchists and any other revolutionary taking action against the U.S. government. He slowly builds the agency's reputation, becoming the sole arbiter of who gets hired and fired. CRITIQUE - A drama, Clint Eastwood directing, DeCaprio starring, a historical piece on a political figure who ran the FBI. What's not to like, I can't lose here right? Wrong. Hated it. The very fact I had to copy the premise from IMDB should tell you I had no idea what the film was really about or trying to convey. I wanted to cut if off halfway through and we're talking a long halfway point here as the film is a 137 minutes of pure boredom. The film is all over the place and doesn't just tell the story in a point a to point b kind of way which is what I think killed it. I think the strong focus on Edgar's love life and the story being partially narrated through a biographer killed much of the flow. The story in itself was not very interesting. The dialogue was okay but useless without a good story and although DiCaprio was decent as Hoover I think the time jumping from old Hoover to young messed him up as there were times he played the old Hoover with the same moxie and youth as the young one. He should have been moving slower and speaking slower as the old one, I would think. Although the 2nd half was better than the first, I wanted to cut the film off but kept going out of curiosity. Either way I don't recommend you watch it whatsoever. SCORE - 5/10 - I would actually give this a 4 if not for the star power, visual sets and pieces and what not. You could see it was a well done film, it just wasn't a good story.
