J Edgar

This weekend my wife and I faced a strange occurence. We found ourselves childless as our kids were all off at various places. Faced with this we chose to go to a late movie. Being a history buff and faced with my wife's refusal to go see any Harold and Kumar movie we chose to go see this movie.

Having read biographies of the Presidents from FDR to Nixon I have a good deal of knowledge about Hoover. His classic battles with the Kennedy's and Martin Luther King are well documented.

Still Clint Eastwood has produced a strong and overall balanced movie here. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Hoover, with makeup playing the whole lifespan with Naomi Watt playing his loyal secretary Helen Gandy. Playing Hoover's longtime assistant and friend Clyde Tolson is Armie Hammer in a very strong performance.

The movie centers much of it's time on Hoover's struggles to use modern methods of police work to help root out Communists and later the Gangsters such as John Dillinger. The event which allowed for the changes Hoover wanted was the kidnapping of the Lindburgh baby. The movie shows how Hoover used fingerprints, wood research and many other new methods. Despite recent curiousness about the true guilt Hoover's methods proved resourceful.

The dark side of Hoover was he grew to love his creation too much. As new administrations came into office to protect himself he had created files on many people. With FDR he had information on Eleanoar, with JFK he had his womanizing and on and on. Eventually keeping his own power and his creation safe became as important as the safety of the nation the FBI originally was sworn to protect.

The movie does a good job telling the story. Over the last decade or so a few of the sensationalized stories of Hoover, his wearing dresses, his relationship with Clyde Tolson, his overbearing mother, his obsessivness about hand washing and such much has been lost of the true history. Some of these subjects are touched on briefly here but no so much as to dominate the movie.

A good film. Dicaprio is stellar in his performance.