The movie suggests that Hoover's inability to be honest about his own identity possibly contributed to an excess of zeal in criminal investigations of sometimes questionable legality. Hoover dedicates his life to the FBI and his country; while his devotion is admirable, his tactics are questionable, and it's far from clear that the people and groups he judges as criminal are really deserving of his barely constitutional methods.
He also has personal animosity toward minorities and "radicals. The undefined nature of Hoover's relationship with his assistant makes the question of sex, and sexual identity, an important part of the film.
One scene involves a surveillance audiotape that seems to have recorded the sounds of people having sex. Infrequent swearing; when the words "c--ksucker" and "f--king" are heard in two scenes , they stand out since the rest of the film is so lacking in profanity. Also "for God's sake" as an exclamation. Some social drinking, though Hoover was a teetotaler and actively discouraged people from drinking, on and off the job.
Some smoking accurate for the time period. Edgar Hoover played by Leonardo DiCaprio is rated R primarily for a couple of brief but notable scenes of strong language including "f--k".
Edgar focuses on both Hoover's career and his personal life, especially the never-defined relationship with longtime companion Clyde Tolson Armie Hammer. While the movie raises questions about Hoover's sexuality that it doesn't answer, there's no actual sex in it though one scene features apparent recorded noises of an amorous couple. Expect a few violent fist fights and shoot outs. Add your rating See all 5 parent reviews. Add your rating See all 6 kid reviews. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as J.
Edgar Hoover, the man who led the FBI for almost 50 years, through eight presidents and three wars. Hoover devoted his life to the bureau, though his personal animosity toward minorities and radicals sometimes led to operations of dubious legality. Naomi Watts co-stars as Hoover's personal secretary, Helen Gandy, who was privy to many of his secrets, especially his personal files that supposedly contained damning secrets about many of the country's most powerful people.
Edgar is a curious mix: It's slow, almost glacial, in parts, and then quickly, shockingly moving in others; it's cerebral, almost distant, and then emotionally raw. This much, though, isn't up for debate: DiCaprio's masterful performance. Insecure, aggressive, fragile, ambitious, and stunted, Hoover is a very complicated character -- and one who's very difficult to pull off.
But DiCaprio leaves nothing on the table; he's all in, and it's a gamble he wins. He's matched by Hammer, who demonstrates again that he's an actor who understands nuance and delivers it. And Watts, too, proves why she's one of the best actresses around.
Her withering stares wither, indeed, and her pitying glances are painful. Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black takes on a mountain of a subject and mostly conquers it; he distills much of it manageably, if not always successfully.
The Lindbergh case takes up a chunk of the storyline -- perhaps too much. Hoover's mother, played frighteningly, winningly close to the bone by grande dame Judi Dench , is so horrific that you have to wonder whether J. Edgar is laying too much of Hoover's dysfunction at her feet. Sign In. Play trailer Biography Drama Romance. Director Clint Eastwood. Dustin Lance Black. Top credits Director Clint Eastwood. See more at IMDbPro. Trailer Promo Netherlands Trailer. Italian Trailer. Photos Top cast Edit.
Leonardo DiCaprio J. Edgar Hoover as J. Edgar Hoover. Brady Matthews Inspector as Inspector. David A. Cooper Franklin Roosevelt as Franklin Roosevelt. Jordan Bridges Labor Dept. Lawyer as Labor Dept. Jack Axelrod Caminetti as Caminetti. Clint Eastwood. More like this. Watch options. Storyline Edit. Biopic of J. Early in his career, Hoover fixated on Communists, anarchists, and any other revolutionary taking action against the U. He slowly builds the agency's reputation, becoming the sole arbiter of who gets hired and fired.
One of his hires is Clyde Tolson Armie Hammer , who is quickly promoted to Assistant Director and was Hoover's confidant and companion for the rest of Hoover's life.
Hoover's memories have him playing a greater role in the many high profile cases in which the F. In the photo, Hoover is shown holding his hands up as Stuart, armed with a toy shotgun, "threatens" him. Later that night, in the dark of a limousine when they left the club, she remembered: "I noticed they were holding hands all the way, just sitting there talking and holding hands with each other… I was so young and those were different times.
But I'd never seen two men holding hands. Joseph Shimon, a former Washington police inspector, recalled a taxi driver reporting the pair had been "kissing and ass-grabbing" during a cab journey. Harry Hay, founder of America's first gay rights group, remembered that on vacation in California, in "a circle in which they didn't have people who weren't gay… They were nodded together as lovers.
The Eastwood movie includes a bizarre scene that depicts Hoover, after his mother's death, donning one of her dresses. It is a nod towards allegations I first reported, that he on occasion cross-dressed.
I had information from three sources, two men who said an "easily recognisable" photograph of Hoover in an evening gown circulated in the gay community in , and an account by a millionaire's former wife of secret sex parties that she claimed to have witnessed in the late 50s. Hoover, the woman said, had been "dressed like an old flapper, like you see on old tintypes". Bill Clinton, who as president in was mulling over who to appoint as FBI Director, thought the cross-dressing reports were hilarious.
Other accounts of the Director's alleged sexual activity, if true, would certainly have destroyed him had they become public. A former Bureau inspector and trusted associate named Jimmy Corcoran said years later that Hoover, youthful at the time, had once asked him to deal with a serious "problem". He had been arrested on sex charges involving a young man during a trip to New Orleans.
Corcoran, who had powerful contacts in the state, said he intervened to hush the matter up. There is, too, a claim that as late as , when Hoover was in his early 70s, he dallied with teenage boys during his habitual summer break in California. An element of corroboration came from Don Smith, an officer on the Los Angeles police vice squad, who told me of interviews he conducted with youngsters during a paedophile investigation. For me, the most significant, credible information on Hoover's sexuality came with the discovery that Hoover for a while consulted Marshall de G Ruffin, a Washington psychiatrist who became president of the Washington Psychiatric Society.
De Ruffin's widow Monteen recalled learning from her husband that his distinguished patient was "definitely troubled by homosexuality". After several sessions, however, "Hoover got very paranoid about anyone finding out he was a homosexual, and got scared. For years he had his agents infiltrate and monitor homosexual-rights groups, while he sounded off publicly about "sex deviates in government service". My conclusion after five years' research was that while Hoover may have spent much of his life repressing his private urges while building an image of himself as the acme of sexual purity, he did sometimes lapse — risking catastrophe every time.
Having studied the information I assembled, two noted specialists in psychiatry and psychology said they believed Hoover's sexual torment was very pertinent to his use and abuse of power as America's top law-enforcement officer. Dr John Money, professor of medical psychology at Johns Hopkins University, thought Hoover "needed constantly to destroy other people in order to maintain himself. He managed to live with his conflict by making others pay the price. A combination of narcissism and paranoia produces what is known as an authoritarian personality.
Hoover would have made a perfect high-level Nazi. The eight decades of Hoover's life tell their own story. As early as his teen years, his mind was closing on issues that were to dominate his era. In the school debating society, he argued against women getting the vote and against abolition of the death penalty.
He could never bear to come second in anything. When his father began to suffer from mental illness, a niece told me, Hoover "couldn't tolerate the fact. He never could tolerate anything that was imperfect. 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. Now playing. Welcome to the Blumhouse: Madres Nick Allen.
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