MovieChat Forums > J. Edgar (2011) Discussion > They shouldn't have tennis balled the st...

They shouldn't have tennis balled the story back and fourth...

posted 10 years ago by archer6749
2 replies | jump to latest

I think one of the major mistakes they made with this movie was going all out of line with the time period. If they would have started off with him being young and then lead him up to being old like most movies do then that would be ok. But going from the 70's to the 20's to the 60's to the 70's again and back to the 40's made it too confusing for people who may not have bothered learning about J. Edgar Hoover before hand. Personally I think they were just trying to show off the ageing make-up a bit because they kept showing more of Edgar and Clyde as the old men rather than the young ones. Which Leo's make-up looked amazing in my opinion but Clyde looked like someone dunked his head in boiling hot oil.

[–] kino66 9 years ago

But going from the 70's to the 20's to the 60's to the 70's again and back to the 40's made it too confusing for people who may not have bothered learning about J. Edgar Hoover before hand.

While I am familiar with J. Edgar Hoover, I still found the time line tennis ball too distracting. Additionally, the dark lighting was ridiculous. Interesting subject, poor presentation.

[–] qfal 9 years ago

I absolutely agree, which is why I came here looking for a post like this. A straight-forward movie about Hoover would be a winner, but this wasn't it.