J Edgar

Think of the movie masterpiece Capote where Phillip Seymour Hoffman captured the essence and depth of the character he was playing and won a well deserved Academy Award. Well now that’s not what you get from Clint Eastwoods’s J Edgar.
The culprit of this movie is poor editing and for those of you who had a hard time following this movie doesn’t feel bad because we were all were frustrated.
The story is about a man who led the CIA for 50 years. J. Edgar Hoover was feared and admired, reviled and revered. But behind closed doors, he held secrets that would have destroyed his career.
The secrets were what I was looking forward to (cross dressing, elicit affairs, his hate of Martin Luther King) but Eastwood only gives a high level overview and you are left with an empty suit of a man.
Back to the editing, the movie is very slow and there are too many flashbacks to the past. When you start to get captivated by a scene it flashes forward to the present then back to the past. The Lindbergh kidnapping, which was a key event during J. Edgar's tenure, is focused on too much in the movie.
This is far from Clint Eastwood's directing best. If DiCaprio wins an Oscar for this movie it will be like Al Pacino winning an Oscar for Scent of a Woman when he should have won if for The Godfather.

Verdict:
Think Jack Nicholson in Hoffa. if you didn’t see Hoffa then you don’t need to see this and if you did then you know what to expect if you see it.