J.Edgar (Clint Eastwood, 2011)

Eastwood's account of the key and end years of the founder and head in perpetuum of the FBI, J Edgar Hoover, is a usual Eastwood American history precis in many aspects - it has considerable longueurs, which might be seen as the ramblings of an aged director, were it not that this has always been his style: a historical subject is treated with too much reverence for the idea that all events and their effects have to be incorporated, which results in less a work of cinema than a faux-documentary. But, on the plus side, so much evidence is chucked in, and to his credit, whatever his suspect political leanings are, Eastwood never shies away from this, that the audience gets to do the job of piecing together their own position armed with the necessary material. This means that it's made clear that the character was in thrall to his mother and fanatical anti-communism, while also a repressed homosexual and fundamentally insecure.
It would probably not work at all were it not for yet another commanding performance by Leonardo DiCaprio in the role: once again, he makes you forget the actor behind the role entirely with changes of articulation, body language and reactions. It's far too long, of course, particularly for non-American audiences, but it does give some insight into how a country that gives the likes of Donald Trump the time of day was formed in living memory.

5/10