J edgar how long is the film

In his biography of Hammer the tycoon, not the actor called "Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer", author Edward Jay Epstein reported that the tycoon had a multi-decade history of being scrutinized and suspected of Soviet ties by J.

Armie stated in an interview that he took the role to avenge that scrutiny. Most historical accounts give Winstead credit for delivering the fatal shot to the back of Dillinger's head. Ironically, given the film's depiction of Hoover as constantly claiming credit for the deed, Winstead received a personal letter of commendation from Hoover for it. Quotes J. Soundtracks Goldberg Variation No. User reviews Review.

Top review. Great but not without its flaws. Not exceptional in anyway, but still great. The tone reminds me a bit of Changeling. Makes sense since the stories are from the same period. I thought the weakest link was the script.

It was interesting, but flawed. Also, the story was not very intriguing. Having watched Milk also written by Black and really liked how the story unfolded, I was expecting a great story about how J. Edgar Hoover rose to power and how he gradually transformed into the monster he became in the end. But instead, the story was told by shifting back and forth in time countless times, which at some point made me feel emotionally detached from the story and the characters.

The elderly characters looked like wax figures to me. It was moving and really fit the mood of the film. His direction and camera-work were masterful as always. Leo was very convincing as J. Edgar, although I keep on seeing bits and pieces of Howard Hughes in his performance. Judi Dench and Naomi Watts were both great, however the same thing can not be said about Armie Hammer.

I thought he was much better in The Social Network. There were a few good moments between him and Leo, but his performance as the elderly Clyde Tolson was darn right awful. I blame the horrible makeup. As for the Oscars, this film will get a few nominations, but I doubt that it would become a strong contender.

Though Leo's performance was not without its flaws, I thought it was more than enough to secure his leading actor nomination. Nods for best art direction, best cinematography and best score are also quite possible. He cleaned up a Bureau that had been notorious for corruption and inefficiency, replacing it with an agent corps that became a byword for integrity. One veteran defined the ideal new recruit as a man who had to represent "the great middle class", who "will always eat well and dress well, but will never get that sleek Packard or sumptuous house.

He belongs to the Bureau body and soul". Hoover brought modernity and co-ordination at a time of disorganisation. He built the first federal fingerprint bank, and his Identification Division would eventually offer instant access to the prints of million people. His Crime Laboratory became the most advanced in the world. While all this was positive, Hoover's Division 8, euphemistically entitled Crime Records and Communications, had a priority mission.

Crime Records pumped out propaganda that fostered not only the image of the FBI as an organisation that spoke for what was right and just, but of the Director himself as a champion of justice fighting "moral deterioration" and "anarchist elements".

Hoover used the department to preach the notion that the political left was responsible for all manner of perceived evils, from changing sexual standards to delinquency. Crime Records portrayed Hoover as the dauntless scourge of serious crime.

In the movie J Edgar , long sequences are devoted to his supposed role in tracking down the murderer of the aviator Charles Lindbergh's baby son.

In real life, while Hoover postured as the Sherlock who led the probe, the case was in fact broken thanks to work done by another federal agency. Hoover hogged the limelight when the thugs were killed or captured and was jealous and vindictive when it fell instead on one of his proteges.

Late in the Eastwood movie, his companion, Clyde Tolson, peruses a memoir Hoover has just completed about his life and career. Then, reproachfully, he remarks that the account is a pack of lies. There was no real-life memoir, but the line is perceptive. Issues of fact versus fabrication and distortion, truth versus outright lie or self-delusion, dominate Hoover's story.

Hoover's public position on race, Southerner that he was, was that of the paternalistic white nativist. Less openly, he was racially prejudiced. He shrugged off the miseries of black Americans, preferring to claim they were outside his jurisdiction.

In the 60s, Hoover went to extreme lengths to establish that Martin Luther King and his movement were under Communist control. When surveillance established only that King was having sex with women other than his wife, FBI aides worked to "neutralise" him by slipping prurient information to the press.

When the civil rights leader was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Hoover was enraged. When thousands mourned King's assassination, Hoover went to the races. He later tried to prevent King's birthday being declared a national holiday. All this took place against a personal background of which few are today aware — a rumour that Hoover himself had black ancestry. Early photographs do show him looking somewhat negroid, with noticeably wiry hair. Gossip along those lines was rife in Washington and — true or not — Hoover must have been aware of it.

Did anxiety on that front shape the way he behaved towards blacks — just as he lashed out at homosexuals while struggling with his own homosexuality? Research into the sex angle, meanwhile, may explain why — at the very time in US history that organised crime was on the rise and could have been effectively countered — Hoover failed to act.

The man who had found fame for hunting down the bank robbers and bandits of the 30s let the Mafia flourish. It seemed at first, before the Second World War, that Hoover would clamp down on the mob. Then, abruptly, he turned off the pressure. In the 50s, he actively obstructed the Kefauver Committee, which concluded there was indeed "a nationwide crime syndicate known as the Mafia". Not so, said Hoover. When a report by his own agents also said the Mafia was real, he dismissed it as "baloney".

Former officials I interviewed, including three former attorney generals and several former assistant directors of the FBI, were at a loss to explain why Hoover refused to tackle the threat of organised crime.

Hoover himself, it is now clear, had contacts with organised criminals or their associates in circumstances that made it possible — likely even — that they learned of his sexual proclivities. More than one top mobster claimed the outfit had a hold on Hoover.

Meyer Lansky, the syndicate's co-founder, was said to have "pictures of Hoover in some kind of gay situation" and an associate quoted Lansky as claiming, "I fixed that sonofabitch. Blackmail was the tactic that worked for Hoover, too, in his dealings with politicians.

The title of my biography of him, Official and Confidential , derives from the name of a file group that was held in locked cabinets in Hoover's office. By an official count after his death, the Director held files on senators and on congressmen.

As a person or as a character, he was a star of stage, screen, radio and print; he was said to have the goods on everyone. People tip-toed around him as they might have with Stalin. It's a nice touch, the way Eastwood and DiCaprio create a character who seems to be a dead zone and make him electrifying in other actors' reaction shots.

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from until his death in In , he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. Rated R for brief strong language. Josh Lucas as Charles Lindbergh. Armie Hammer as Clyde Tolson. Naomi Watts as Helen Gandy. Judi Dench as Annie Hoover. Leonardo DiCaprio as J.

Edgar Hoover. Reviews What did Hoover hide in his bureau drawers? Roger Ebert November 08, Now streaming on:. Powered by JustWatch.

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