J. Edgar

I would be lying if I were to ignore a decline that's been apparent in Clint Eastwood's work ever since his great film, GRAN TORINO. Perhaps because that film was so good, or because subsequent films have been challenging, and daring (sometimes resulting in uneven films), HEREAFTER, which I found less impressive on a second viewing, and INVICTUS, have been far from great, while containing some excellent bits. The same is true of J. EDGAR, which tells the story of J. Edgar Hoover in vignette-like, chapter based sections that follow highlights of his life. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Hoover awkwardly, sopping up the performance with a distractingly fake sounding accent, which is only awkward, oddly, in the scenes where Hoover is young, and works in the scenes where he's old. Furthermore, a lot of the lighting in J. EDGAR just feels contrived, or as if someone should be saying "someone turn a fucking light on in this room!" I actually drained my screen of color for a couple of minutes, and the film looked fantastic, but when there's color in the picture, it just looks bad. Armie Hammer is excellent as Clyde Tolson, and the relationship he has with Hoover in the film is the heart of the film, and the level of its understated nature is perfectly contrasted to Hoover's similarly understated demeanor. About half of the film feels well made, but another half just feels as if it wasn't thought out very well. Didn't someone look at the coloration, or hear DiCaprio's accent and frown? This seems to actually be something that, sadly, is to the fault of Eastwood, who sometimes lets his collaborators run away with his picture, trusting them to much to direct them effectively.

★★ out of Five