Main Image: 

Published: 19 January, 2012
by DAN CARRIER

Directed by Clint Eastwood
Certificate 15

Rating: 4 Out Of 5 Stars

This biopic of J Edgar Hoover is not just a rather gentle look at a man who wielded immense power throughout the 20th century.

On closer inspection, it is about how democracy can be undermined by the dark forces of state power, of how governmental tools can be used not to follow the wishes of those it purports to represent, but those who simply see it as a means to continue, at all costs, the establishment status quo.

It also makes a series of excuses for Hoover’s behaviour which was, frankly, barbaric in pursuing his own political agenda.

We learn his life was consistently unhappy because of having to suppress his sexuality – it claims he was in love with his best mate and number two FBI man, Clyde Tolson, but had to hide it.

We see a dominant mother figure (played by that most un-American film star, Judi Dench) who has a virulent streak of homophobia running through her.

We track Hoover’s early life where, as a young man, he shows a liking for the more mundane detective work his colleagues shun.

It makes him a master of the briefs he is given, and a great believer in the slow, slow pace of forensic analysis, which eventually brings the results to give his bureau credibility.

He is also stung by the rise of communism, watching the Chicago that Upton Sinclair wrote so eloquently about in The Jungle threaten his much-admired status quo.

Leonardo DiCaprio is excellent in the lead, as is his sidekick Armee Hammer as Clyde Tolson.

I have a small gripe that the prosthetics used on Tolson as we jump generations are not particularly impressive and they make it hard to take his character as seriously as one would like as he ages.

We are told the story of Hoover’s life through a series of flashbacks as he dictates his memoirs to a junior FBI agent.

It takes us through some of his “achievements”, and, while trying to be balanced, it manages to ignore some of the fundamental impact his career had on the American state – namely the way it gave the federal government greater powers over different states’ law enforcement bodies.

Hoover’s power was incredible, serving under no fewer than eight presidents, heading the bureau through three wars over 50 years, the sheer amount of private information he gathered gave him immense leverage.

That is the crux of this biopic.