J. Edgar (2011)

All Critics (222) | Top Critics (45) | Fresh (99) | Rotten (123) | DVD (8)

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

January 17, 2012 Full Review

Dave Calhoun

Time Out

Top Critic

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

November 11, 2011 Full Review | Comments (10)

Tom Long

Detroit News

Top Critic

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

November 11, 2011 Full Review | Comments (5)

Rick Groen

Globe and Mail

Top Critic

Although Hoover's luster faded as his career went on, Eastwood's movie seems wan from the start.

November 11, 2011 Full Review | Comment (1)

Stephen Whitty

Newark Star-Ledger

Top Critic

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

November 11, 2011 Full Review | Comment (1)

Eric D. Snider

Film.com

Top Critic

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.

November 10, 2011 Full Review | Comments (7)

Joe Morgenstern

Wall Street Journal

Top Critic

A lumbering miscalculation...

December 29, 2012 Full Review

Roger Moore

McClatchy-Tribune News Service

While it's often sluggish as the narrative ping-pongs back and forth through the years in low-key, de-saturated fashion, Hoover makes for such a fascinating subject matter that Eastwood's bio-drama can't help but prove compelling in sporadic bursts.

October 30, 2012 Full Review

Stephen Carty

Flix Capacitor

Regardless of how you may feel about the film's vision of Hoover's private life, you have to respect J. Edgar for the conviction of its depiction. Very much like the resolve of the despotic man it so vividly portrays.

October 22, 2012 Full Review

Erick Weber

NECN

J. Edgar provides an intriguing look at one of America's icons but Eastwood fails to deliver a cohesive narrative or enough compelling insight into his subject.

October 2, 2012 Full Review

Ben Kendrick

ScreenRant

The consistently negative study of Hoover, along with pell-mell story telling and a melodramatic and silly gay romance, make J. Edgar a disappointing film.

September 15, 2012 Full Review

Amy Curtis

We Got This Covered

Self-serving, self-indulgent and about as dramatically effective as a school play.

July 12, 2012 Full Review

Felix Vasquez Jr.

Cinema Crazed

Hoover's magnetism derives from his intellect, certainty, power, and sense for myth-making, and DiCaprio bears that out with a performance of a man who himself may be constantly performing as though he has nothing to hide.

June 20, 2012 Full Review

Mark Pfeiffer

Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema

Despite the odd sharp observation, somehow J. Edgar comes off like the Max Fischer Players' production of Serpico... [Blu-ray]

April 6, 2012 Full Review

Peter Canavese

Groucho Reviews

A failure, but an interesting failure when you step back and contemplate the project as a whole. Not really anybody's idea of a good time at the cinema that, though, is it?

March 22, 2012 Full Review | Comments (3)

Catherine Bray

Film4

Needless to say, as J Edgar ages, DiCaprio flounders. It is simply preposterous for him to play a 77-year-old man! All the elderly prosthetic make-up in the world cannot disguise his adolescent cheekbones from beaming through.

March 10, 2012 Full Review

Brian Henry Martin

UTV

A decent take on one of America's most prolific political figures and people with an interest in American history will get a lot out of it

March 8, 2012 Full Review

Cameron Williams

The Popcorn Junkie

Eastwood's latest underappreciated masterpiece makes a stunning debut on Blu-ray with a lack of extras that arguably purposefully bucks any sense of context.

March 5, 2012 Full Review

Chris Cabin

Slant Magazine

DiCaprio keeps the film afloat, but J. Edgar lacks any real controversy and never fully reaches deep within the man's dark psyche.

February 23, 2012 Full Review

R. L. Shaffer

IGN DVD

An out-of-the-closet biopic knocking another controversial icon off his pedestal.

February 22, 2012 Full Review

Kam Williams

NewsBlaze

The movie bears all the earmarks of a great film without ever rising to the occasion of greatness; instead, it is almost forgettable an hour after seeing it. (Blu-ray edition)

February 19, 2012 Full Review

John J. Puccio

Movie Metropolis

Hoover may have been the sweetest, kindest, gentlest man in the world, or he may have been a ruthless bastard; we wouldn't know from Eastwood's cautious portrayal of him.

February 19, 2012 Full Review

John J. Puccio

Movie Metropolis

na senario poy se alla xeria eite tha ypefere ap' thn epilektikothta ths istorikhs toy afhghshs, eite tha pnigotan sto camp ths psyxologikhs toy aitiologhshs, anti na metatrapei se psyxraimo apologismo twn kalwn prothesewn poy odhgoyn sthn kolash

February 17, 2012 Full Review | Comments (3)

Joseph Proimakis

Movies for the Masses

• 1. J. Edgar Hoover: Funny how even the dearest face will fade away in time, but most clearly I remember your eyes with a sort of teasing smile in them, and the feeling of that soft spot just northeast of the corner of your mouth.
  – Submitted by Eric H (14 months ago)
• 1. J. Edgar Hoover: Clyde! Don't leave me!
  – Submitted by Alejandro O (15 months ago)
• 1. J. Edgar Hoover: It's time this generation learns the difference between villan and hero. Even great men can be corrupted.
  – Submitted by Brandon M (16 months ago)
• 1. Anne Marie Hoover: I'd rather have a dead son than a daffodil.
  – Submitted by Lyndon L (16 months ago)
• 1. J. Edgar Hoover: Imagine if every citizen in this country were uniquely identifiable by the pattern on their fingers, imagine how quickly we could find them, if they committed a crime.
  – Submitted by Dennis A (18 months ago)
• 1. Richard Nixon: Seal off his office. I want those files!
  – Submitted by Dennis A (18 months ago)