Life of secrets: Leonardo DiCaprio and director Clint Eastwood shine light on FBI icon in ‘J. Edgar’ - Entertainment, Movies - Navy Times

Life of secrets: Leonardo DiCaprio and director Clint Eastwood shine light on FBI icon in ‘J. Edgar’

In Clint Eastwood’s “J. Edgar,” a 1930 movie theater audience makes its preference clear. Whereas J. Edgar Hoover’s pre-movie promotion reel about G-men and the FBI draws impatient boos, a trailer for the upcoming James Cagney flick “The Public Enemy” inspires hoots and applause.

Though Hoover was exceptionally popular with the American public throughout his nearly four-decade reign as FBI director, his opponents — the gangsters, the radicals, the Kennedys — have always been the chosen subjects of movies.

“J. Edgar” may not draw cheers, but it remains a riveting, noble attempt to wrestle with big American questions, many of which have obvious relevance to today’s politics.

“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.

The film 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 marry typist Helen Gandy (the wonderful Naomi Watts, here underused, looking too bright for a somber tale), but when she declines, he makes her his lifelong, trusted secretary instead.

Eastwood tries 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.

Eastwood explores Hoover’s increasing megalomania, his illegal surveillance, his secret files. By the time Richard Nixon is elected president, Hoover ironically recognizes him as a “menace” who will do anything to keep power. But Eastwood also reminds us of Hoover’s accomplishments: establishing a collection of fingerprints in Washington, advocating forensics early on, bringing professionalism to FBI agents.

DiCaprio does a great deal to make “J. Edgar” compelling. He’s almost Orson Welles-ish, as the elderly Hoover. But really it’s the experience of aging that comes across best with “J. Edgar.” Hoover resonates as a man increasingly and tragically out of step with time. Thankfully, it’s been quite the opposite for Eastwood.