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Screensize: 640 x 480 800 x 600 1024 x 768 1280 x 1024 UserName: Password: Format Mode: Basic  Help  Prompt  Format: Font Andale Mono Arial Arial Black Book Antiqua Century Gothic Comic Sans MS Courier New Georgia Impact Lucida Console Script MT Bold Stencil Tahoma Times New Roman Trebuchet MS Verdana   Size 1 2 3 4 5 6   Color Black Red Yellow Pink Green Orange Purple Blue Beige Brown Teal Navy Maroon LimeGreen Message: Smilies [quote][i]Originally posted by randall[/i] [br][url="http://www.fwfr.com/display.asp?ID=43842"]Clint Eastwood�s new film[/url] is held earthbound by the weight of its central character and the one-note nature of his frightening decades-long megalomania. Most people who remember J. Edgar Hoover do so through a veil of scorn. His paranoia and Commie-hatred made Dick Cheney look like Emma Goldman [as one of Hoover�s early victims, she is portrayed in the film], and he only met his match in ruthlessness the day Richard Nixon ascended to the White House. Leonardo DiCaprio seizes one more chance to prove he�s an actor to reckon with, but the part lets him down. Though he never falters in the role, there is so little change in Hoover that his portrayal lacks color [as does Eastwood�s palette, all distressed-looking blues and grays]. This man was a bundle of stress and insecurity when he first arrived at Justice, and he never came close to working any of it out. The showier character is Hoover�s �companion� Clyde Tolson, played by Armie Hammer of THE SOCIAL NETWORK. The screenplay by Dustin Lance Black [MILK] is unstinting when viewing their much-speculated-about relationship, but makes neither man into a cartoon. Even the most notorious rumor about Hoover is visually depicted, but in a way that proceeds organically out of the story. The worst thing about this movie is the awful old-age makeup, which we�re required to stare at for much too long. DiCaprio looks like a cross between a decrepit Jon Voight and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Hammer is simply ghastly as an old man, like a reanimated character out of a horror movie. Only Naomi Watts as Hoover�s longtime secretary appears to age gracefully. Eastwood�s directorial hand is solid as always, nearly invisible. It�s the subject matter which lacks transcendence. Hoover�s own memory and self-aggrandizement [he is ostensibly dictating his life story] are challenged in a revelatory speech by Tolson toward the end; so much about the man has been secreted away that all we have left is something that most resembles an Oliver Stone take. Worth seeing, but not worth saving. [/quote]    -  HTML is OFF | Forum Code is ON   Check here to include your profile signature.