“J. Edgar,’’ too, may not draw cheers, but it remains a riveting, noble attempt by Eastwood, now 81, to wrestle with big American questions, many of which have obvious relevance to today’s politics. It’s another largely fascinating, if disappointingly flawed chapter in Eastwood’s fantastic late period.
“J. Edgar’’ is a biopic framed around Hoover (a thoroughly committed, engaging but ultimately still removed Leonardo DiCaprio) dictating his life story to various typists. This is Hoover’s story, mainly told through his perspective — and therefore a somewhat claustrophobic view of history.
The film, from an ambitious script by Dustin Lance Black (who wrote the Harvey Milk biopic, “Milk’’), opens with a lot of switches in time as the narrative rushes to pack in the rise of Hoover as a Justice Department upstart and eager riser at the nascent Bureau of Investigation. It’s a grimly propulsive first hour, pushed forward by the relentless, paranoid patter of the fast-talking Hoover (nicknamed “Speed’’).
Hoover is fully formed from the start: A meticulous, obsessive defender of America (or what he conceives as America). He tries to make typist Helen Gandy (the wonderful Naomi Watts, here underused, looking too bright for a somber tale) his wife, but when she declines, he makes her his lifelong, trusted secretary instead.
“Edgar, can you keep a secret?’’ Gandy, explaining her career goals, asks — and somewhere, five decades of American politicians chortle.
Eastwood makes an effort to show the post-World War I political climate by which Hoover was formed — the bombings and assassination attempts that would ignite his long “war against the Bolsheviks.’’ The point, perhaps, is that the threat was not just paranoia — but was still far from the “end of times’’ warnings that echoed, not unlike they have in contemporary times.
