A fine performances and for example Leonardo DiCaprio did a splendid job, though the story did not build anything interesting. So much to tell, so little they archived.

i had no particular interest in the person of j. edgar hoover. and in terms of character study, it may merely scratch the surface of what kind of messed up person hoover was. but that would've meant to me, that there had to be something else going on. which wasn't exactly the case, either. some random jumping around to benchmarks of FBI history with emphasis on the lindbergh-baby-case. it tries to touch too many subjects and a too great timespan at once, so it gets lost in indifference. too bad.

It seems that there was simply nothing interesting to tell and Eastwood was trying to hide this by jumping around to another time of Hoovers life every two minutes. Good acting, but not much more.

i love biography! and what a bastard he was!

The weakest film of Eastwood as a director that I have seen yet. :(

Difficult as the subject of J. Edgar Hoover must have been to tackle, a more satisfactory approach could surely have been found; Dustin Lance Black's ham-fisted, murkily constructed script provides only in flashes a real look into who Hoover was or what made him tick, falling back on a shallow Oedipal complex and heavy-handed repressed homosexuality. Flat direction; DiCaprio and Armie Hammer do what they can with the material (although Hammer is stymied by some horrifically bad old-age makeup).

I guess we can safely catalogue this as another one of Eastwood's misses. What begins as an engaging if unremarkable drama devolves into an overlong and rambling mess with DiCaprio's impressive performance being wasted on the unfocused storytelling. And what's with the bad old age make-up?

Has the same problem as Public Enemy with Depp... should have been an interesting story but failed to actually deliver...

Excellent biopic handled by Eastwood in his usual understated, masterful way. DiCaprio is magnificent in the lead and ages convincingly, with the help of terrific make-up; Dench's make-up also excellent as she believably ages from her mid fifties to elderly. Fragmented narrative structure used to great effect as Hoover remembers fragments of his life; supressed homosexual relationship between Hoover and Tolson also handled with remarkable care and tact. Rather bafflingly underrated.

Horrible make-up, acting etc. Who is J.edgar? Probably fbi's funniest, delusional kid who has a problem with authority.

More like J. Edgar SNOOZER of the Federal BORED-o of investi... err, let's see... investi-LAME-ions, am I right? No, but really, this was a terribly dry and unengaging biopic that suffers from bad editing, fake looking make-up and wooden acting.

Overall a fine movie/portrayal of the notorious head of the Bureau. Again a great performance from Dicaprio (wonder if hes finally gonna win one this year, or if hes gonna have to wait for 30 years like Marty), solid directing from eastwood (some great cinematography) and compelling story telling make this a film to watch! Forget all the brouhaha and the negative press, this is a good movie! All though it could have been 15/20 mins shorter.

I don't need to watch some turgid, washed out, achingly dull Oscar bait movie to know that J. Edgar Hoover was an evil little scumbag. Then again Eastwood isn't in any hurry to point this out. Woefully misguided, and painfully tedious to sit through. Come on Clint, give it up - nobody's interested anymore.

Checked my ratings and apparently I gave "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" 50 points. The best way to describe my disappointment with DiCaprio and Eastwood is to give this movie a lower score. With a great cast, a great director and most importantly a great historical person wrapped in mystory this movie could've been great! I'd like to quote the American poet John Greenleaf Whittier "For all sad words of tongue or pen the saddest are these, it might have been." - or in layman's terms: BOOO!

Una difference pelicula.

Confused, overlong movie. What does it want to be? It doesn't know, and is more the boring for it.

DiCaprio is easily the best part of this movie, putting on a really great performance, but the the movie lacks in other parts. The old-age make-up is god-awful and the whole thing generally seems to be missing a sense of direction and point. 15 - 20 minutes could have been taken of the movie too, but allthough it is a bit too long, the nice pacing more or less makes up for it. I went into this expecting a lot more, but it was a solid film nonetheless.

FBI should investigate the make-up department. Our aging friend Eastwood should on the other hand pick better scripts.

In retrospektive I cant help to wonder, if there actually was a plot here worth making a movie about. Also the movie focused a lot on Edgar being gay, even though(at least to my knowledge) these rumours was never confirmed).

The last half an hour is awesome. Too bad the two hours leading to that are quite boring.

I can't believe Clint had anything to do with this movie

Clint Eastwood's wonderfully tacky biopic of J. Edgar Hoover is creepy, often unintentionally funny, and, for the most part, non-revelatory. It doesn't help that DiCaprio's make up makes him look uncannily like character actor Parley Baer.

i expected an excelent movie, a total disaster...

If nothing else, Dustin Lance Black just confirmed what I already thought - won an Oscar only because he was gay. And man Leo is so desperate for an Oscar, it's kind of sad actually. Mostly a boring and shitty film, especially the ending which just seemed like they got sick of trying and just let the PA's run the show. Another forgettable film from Eastwood, quit ruining your legacy man.

This is another interesting and well made movie by director Clint Eastwood. Leondardo DiCaprio is excellent in the title role. Armie Hammer and Judi Dench also put in some fine acting performances. I did not know much about J. Edgar before this movie, his life was very interesting.

Expected a lot better.

Solid biopic, even if there's nothing to emotionally invest in. Nothing is given enough screen time to give satisfying closure to, but that's how it'll likely remain when the subject concerns J. Edgar Hoover. The lack of information did give Eastwood and Black a chance to exaggerate greatly, and it's enough to entertain. Neither of them do much with the material to stand out, but as expected DiCaprio owns the hell out of this role.

eastwood's attempt to humanize j. edgar is a worthwhile albeit somewhat humdrum affair....it has sparked my interest in certain historical events...eg: the lindbergh kidnapping but it is one of my least favorite films from this directors recent efforts.....

Given the horrible streak Eastwood has currently set up for himself, I can't say I'm the least bit surprised this sucked so much. The unfashionable, tedious fashion in which it's told makes Hoover too remote a figure and provides little weight to his personal life, political journey and otherwise notorious nature. Warner Bros. needs to get its head out of its ass and realize Eastwood's better off in a retirement home than behind the camera.

Interesting to compare this movie to THE IRON LADY, from the same year... I liked J. EDGAR more. MUCH more... I gained a sense of the man's soul. And, I thought it was some of DiCaprio's finer, recent work...

Unlike others I seemed to fall in step with the narrative structure (much like the case was with Flags of Our Fathers), and despite the focus being blurry at best I was invested in the characters and occasionally wowed by the performances. The fact that I didn't know anything about J. Edgar or the Lindbergh story going in helped keep my interest. Almost definitely not as good a film as my score indicates (the criticisms leveled by others are valid), but I enjoyed it for what it was worth.

Someone gave Clint Eastwood millions of dollars to make a History Channel reenactment. This film is downright pointless. As a biopic, it fails to provide anything beyond shallow insight on Hoover. As a drama, the story progresses along an emotional flat line. It's the one of the most awkward implementations of non-linear narrative I've seen. To top it all off, the romance is a complete dud rife with cliches. Oh, and the old people makeup sucks.

Despite Leo DiCaprio's eager-beaver empathetic performance, this grim, humorless exercise, featuring lousy old-age make-up, turns out ghoulish and self-congratulatory -- just like Milk.

"Images of the living, yet decaying, body are what turn a cookie-cutter biopic into something far more personal." - Jaime N. Christley

Perhaps a meandering biopic, but certainly an exceptional love story.

Wonderful performances fail to hold together a narrative that meanders between insufficiently informative and poorly constructed. I wanted to know more, and I wanted to be so informed in a cohesive and entertaining fashion, with due consideration to Hoover's undeniable impact. Unfortunately I was most touched by Hoover's repressed homosexual romance, which feels contrived and wholly separate from the depiction of his public life.

Poorly edited biopic that seems to be unable to get out of it's own way. Jumps around so much you never know who they are talking about when they say "the president," the elderly make-up was bad (and worse they started the movie off with it), and every time I started to like a little of it they would jump to something completely different in a different time of his life. Severely disappointing.

70.000

A dry, academic document, only livened up by occasional moments of campy overacting from the usually reliable DiCaprio. I've seen messier, less professional productions this year, but I haven't seen many that provoked less of an emotional response from me at any point during their runtimes.

Unfocused and excruciating slow in the last reel. DiCaprio and the Lindbergh-story keeps it afloat but only just. And who approved Armie Hammer's make-up?

This is an excruciatingly slow, disjointed slog through the dullest parts of Hoover's life. The film dwells endlessly on the most boring parts and mostly skips the interesting parts of what should have been an engaging story. Instead of an exploration of Hoover's FBI we get a brutally boring love story that seems to never end. If you are interested in a super-slow gay romance movie you might not find this film awful; but if you are hoping for some American history, do not watch this.