J. Edgar

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

People over the age of 40 seem to just apply blanket praise to everything Clint Eastwood touches. I haven't really liked anything I've seen from him in the last decade and was kind of dreading this one after Hereafter.

While nowhere near as terrible as that, I found it to be everything I expected. Beautifully photographed, brilliantly acted technically well made story I didn't care at all about. I get no heart from Eastwood films, just empty emoting. And he really needs to stop doing music for his own films and hire someone that can write more than just one song that repeats throughout the duration. That's not a score.

I don't know anything about Hoover so I have no idea how accurate this depiction is. The way the character is presented is structurally very close to The Iron Lady, telling a story from the end of his life and flashing back to various other scenes from the past. Again they don't attempt to vilify him or make him sympathetic, he just is and I'm still not sure why I should care either way.

For a film over 2 hours long there's no way it should feel so lacking.