It may be quite different when we list a series of events about J. Edgar Hoover, the powerful president of F.B.I. The events begin with the man who had been the head of that institution for nearly 50 years, starting to look at his career and personality unexpectedly.
With noirish lighting and most of the running time spent inside offices or cramped domestic rooms, Eastwood keeps the film claustrophobic, sometimes unpleasantly intimate.
A large, self-important, incident-by-incident biopic crammed with luxuriant period detail, laden with old-age make-up and powered by meticulous but riskless acting.
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.
