J. Edgar

Arriving hot on the heels of Hereafter, Clint Eastwood’s most engaging and entertaining film in years, J. Edgar can’t help but come off as an especially epic disappointment – as the film, which documents the life and times of the legendary FBI boss, suffers from an egregiously deliberate pace that highlights the deficiencies within Dustin Lance Black’s needlessly convoluted screenplay. It’s clear right from the outset that the biggest problem here is a pervasive lack of context, as Black, having eschewed overt instances of character development, stresses the minutia of Hoover’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) day-to-day exploits both within the FBI and at home. And while some of this stuff is admittedly kind of interesting – eg Hoover fires a subordinate for refusing to shave his moustache – there’s just never a point at which the viewer is able to actually, wholeheartedly care about any of this. The movie’s hands-off atmosphere is compounded by its stop-and-start momentum, as Eastwood offers up a seriously plodding midsection that’s almost entirely devoid of interesting (or even passable) sequences – with the only real exception to this the periodic emphasis on Hoover’s surprisingly engrossing investigation into the Lindbergh kidnapping. Eastwood and Black’s inability to effectively get inside Hoover’s head ensures that the comparatively melodramatic, Brokeback Mountain-like final third comes off especially poorly, as the viewer has absolutely nothing invested in the friendship/relationship between Hoover and his closest confidant, Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer). The end result is a colossal misfire that is, above all else, downright boring for much of its overlong running time, which is a shame, certainly, given the strength of Eastwood’s visuals and DiCaprio’s performance.

*1/2 out of ****