****SPOILERS*** We get to see actor Lenny DeCaprio play FBI Director J. Edger Hoover from a 24 year old pencil pusher in the US Justice Department in 1919 to a sick and dying 77 year old man trying to hang on to his job as America's "Top Cop" as his good friend columnist Walter Winchell describe and popularized him as in the spring of 1972. In between those two dates Hoover consolidated his power as FBI Director that he became the most powerful and feared man in America. So powerful that no President of the eight that he served under would dare stand up to and challenge him. Hoover did this by amassing tens of thousands of secret files, mostly about their sex lives, on every member of the House Senate as well as Presidents and their cabinet members who would or could ever be a threat to his power. As for Hoover himself we see he wasn't that squeaky clean as he and his admirers or toadies made him out to be.
We get to see that Hoover had a secret life of his own as a closet homosexual that haunted him his entire adult life. Sometimes he couldn't hid the fact that he was gay especially when he got drunk in public together with his gay partner in life Clyde Tolson, Armie Hammer, who was his hand picked second in command of the FBI. Acting with him as he was going on a date with girl or woman Hoover would after a couple of stiff drinks let out his feelings about Tolson in what a soul mate he is to him that caused rumors about the two that were anything but complementary. There's a scene where Hoover in trying to prove to the American public that he's straight telling Tolson that he's planning to marry actress Dorothy Lamuor in order to squelch the rumors abut his gay lifestyle. This shocking revelation on Hoover's part in having Tolson playing second fiddle to Miss. Lamour had him throw a fit and physically attack him back at the FBI's office building. Kissing and later making up with Tolson Hoover after that nasty incident never tried to show any interest in women, in a sexual way, again even if they were a just harmless flirts or put-on. Yet it was a woman Hoover's personal secretary and Girl Friday Helen Gandy, Neomi Watts, that he entrusted with his personal papers as well as secret files that she after Hoover's death had shredded. That was to keep the then US President Richard M. Nixon, Christ Shyer, from getting his hands on them and using the files against his political enemies like Hoover used them against his.
We get to see J.Edger Hoover for what he really was in the movie. A truly extraordinary man like President Nixon describe him but also a very petty insecure and vindictive man as well. There's no doubt that Hoover did a lot to save he US from Communist anarchists in the 1920's and Nazi saboteurs during WWII. He also personally made the FBI the envy of all crime investigating and fighting organizations in the US as well as the world at large. But his Achilles Heel was his very secretive lifestyle as a closet gay. It was that information that the Mafia had proof of in secret audio tape and photographs that compromised his ability, by him being blackmailed, in fighting or even recognizing the Mafia or organized crime for what it was: A major threat to the American way of life. And in J. Edger Hoover permitting it to grow all out of proportions made things far worse for all of us than all the good that he did in protecting the country from both domestic and foreign enemies over his 48 years as FBI Director.
We get to see that Hoover had a secret life of his own as a closet homosexual that haunted him his entire adult life. Sometimes he couldn't hid the fact that he was gay especially when he got drunk in public together with his gay partner in life Clyde Tolson, Armie Hammer, who was his hand picked second in command of the FBI. Acting with him as he was going on a date with girl or woman Hoover would after a couple of stiff drinks let out his feelings about Tolson in what a soul mate he is to him that caused rumors about the two that were anything but complementary. There's a scene where Hoover in trying to prove to the American public that he's straight telling Tolson that he's planning to marry actress Dorothy Lamuor in order to squelch the rumors abut his gay lifestyle. This shocking revelation on Hoover's part in having Tolson playing second fiddle to Miss. Lamour had him throw a fit and physically attack him back at the FBI's office building. Kissing and later making up with Tolson Hoover after that nasty incident never tried to show any interest in women, in a sexual way, again even if they were a just harmless flirts or put-on. Yet it was a woman Hoover's personal secretary and Girl Friday Helen Gandy, Neomi Watts, that he entrusted with his personal papers as well as secret files that she after Hoover's death had shredded. That was to keep the then US President Richard M. Nixon, Christ Shyer, from getting his hands on them and using the files against his political enemies like Hoover used them against his.
We get to see J.Edger Hoover for what he really was in the movie. A truly extraordinary man like President Nixon describe him but also a very petty insecure and vindictive man as well. There's no doubt that Hoover did a lot to save he US from Communist anarchists in the 1920's and Nazi saboteurs during WWII. He also personally made the FBI the envy of all crime investigating and fighting organizations in the US as well as the world at large. But his Achilles Heel was his very secretive lifestyle as a closet gay. It was that information that the Mafia had proof of in secret audio tape and photographs that compromised his ability, by him being blackmailed, in fighting or even recognizing the Mafia or organized crime for what it was: A major threat to the American way of life. And in J. Edger Hoover permitting it to grow all out of proportions made things far worse for all of us than all the good that he did in protecting the country from both domestic and foreign enemies over his 48 years as FBI Director.