The Hoover material is ugly and very American, and it might have made an authentic monster story. But the picture offered is muddled, cautious, and at cross purposes.

| Jun 20, 2013

It is a solid, expertly crafted biopic, and while it doesn't dive as deeply into its enigmatic central figure as I'd hoped it would that didn't make sitting in the theatre watching every single one of its 137 minutes any less enjoyable.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 27, 2012

This muddled melodrama adds up to a missed opportunity.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 20, 2012

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 20, 2012

Hoover was one of the darkest figures in US history but Eastwood and his scriptwriter have forgiven all in a hazy resignation to old age coming to everyone and love being what matters.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 20, 2012

One part Charles Foster Kane to three parts Elmer Fudd.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 20, 2012

J. Edgar is earnestly watchable. But it makes no contribution to a better understanding of Hoover...

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 19, 2012

The effect of Hoover on America itself is largely ignored, its speculations are cramped, and its actors hampered with plastic, padding and wigs.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 19, 2012

A pleasing, intelligent film happy to describe Hoover's behaviour as monstrous but too balanced and searching to damn him as a monster.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 17, 2012

A laboured, morally questionable portrait of the would-be power broker that, moreover, is badly undermined by some dubious special-effects decisions.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 30, 2011

The sort of staidly respectable, competently directed biopic that gives a bad name to competently directed biopics, and possibly to respectability.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 22, 2011

Easily the best thing Eastwood has done in years, though that's not exactly praise considering the director's recent years include such turgid duds like Gran Torino, Invictus and Hereafter.

| Original Score: 60/100 | Nov 12, 2011

Somehow J. Edgar manages to be both epic and empty.

| Original Score: C+ | Nov 11, 2011

Usually the tautest of directors, Clint Eastwood has gone all slack here, allowing his subject to get completely away from him.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 11, 2011

Leonardo DiCaprio is not the first name that springs to mind as the embodiment of legendary FBI director J. Edgar Hoover-unlike, for instance, the title character in the upcoming remake of The Great Gatsby.

| Nov 11, 2011

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 11, 2011

Here's that J. Edgar Hoover biopic you asked for, or at least something that meets all the technical requirements to be considered one.

| Original Score: C- | Nov 11, 2011

Mr. Eastwood's ponderous direction, a clumsy script by Dustin Lance Black and ghastly slatherings of old-age makeup all conspire to put the story at an emotional and historical distance. It's a partially animated waxworks.

| Nov 10, 2011

How believable is DiCaprio? When I first heard he had been cast as Hoover, I couldn't think of another actor physically less likely to pull it off. But he's surprisingly good.

| Original Score: B- | Nov 10, 2011

Within the sprawling biopic that is J. Edgar beats the heart of a love story.

| Original Score: B+ | Nov 10, 2011