J. Edgar- A Movie Review

Since the move I've found a group of ladies that go to the movies almost every Tuesday night. They have kindly taken me in and allowed me to be a part of the group. Since it's a group venture, sometimes you end up seeing movies you wouldn't have picked on your own. This week's movie falls into that category. It's been fun to get outside my movie box and see movies I might have otherwise missed.

This week was "J. Edgar". Directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, this film was bound to be masterful. Even if you don't like the movie itself, you can't deny the greatness of the acting, careful attention to detail when jumping time frames, great directing and absolutely masterful makeup.

The makeup in this movie was probably the most impressive part to me. It actually took me a minute or so to realize that DiCaprio was J. Edgar.

Pretty impressive, don't you think? Here are a few others and an actual shot of J. Edgar Hoover for comparison.

DiCaprio as J. Edgar from a different angle.

The real J. Edgar Hoover.

DiCaprio as young J. Edgar Hoover.

While the movie is a bit long, and in my opinion spent a little too much time on the Lindbergh baby (though this was a major part of Hoover and the establishment of what we know today as the FBI, I thought they could have shortened the time on this a little), over all I was impressed with the movie. My comment to the Engineer was, "I appreciated it for what it was." (The Engineer is much more likely to see a historical biography type film than I am, so I look forward to seeing what he thinks of it when it comes to RedBox.)

DiCaprio gives an amazing performance. I don't know that I'd say "award winning" (the character didn't require as great a shift as when DiCaprio played Howard Hughes in "The Aviator"), but he does a great job.

When walking out of the movie the comments were varied, but most agreed it was a good movie. Most of the commentary surrounded the actual character of J. Edgar. One person thought the movie didn't portray him as nearly as bad as she had imagined given what she knew from actual history. I didn't know much at all about Hoover before seeing the movie, but what I noticed was that he almost certainly did things that would be considered unethical and immoral, but at the heart of it all he was only trying to do what he thought was best for America however misguided.

Does having the right intentions make his actions acceptable? Probably not, but it helps you to understand a little more why people do the things they do. I almost compare it to parenting. At the end of the day, most parents make decisions that they believe in their heart to be the best for their children. Sometimes they turn out to be, sometimes they don't. As the child, if you can look back and know that even the mistakes were made with your best interest at heart you can usually make peace with what you consider to be the mistakes your parents made.

There you have it. My review. I still say the most impressive and best part of the movie was the transformation of characters from young to old. The makeup is crazy-good!

DiCaprio photos are all from Warner Brothers and if you want to know more about J. Edgar Hoover according to Wikipedia, then go here.