MovieChat Forums > J. Edgar (2011) Discussion > Was J. Edgar Hoover a hero or was he a t...

Was J. Edgar Hoover a hero or was he a tyrant?


I have been reading up on him in Richard Hack's book and being halfway through, I am thinking he was not as evil as people might think but he definitely believed so strongly that he was right as to not hesitate to be excessive.

His story really could not be squeezed into a two hour movie though.

http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=23952071

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[deleted]

He was a hero to tyrants, darling!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good one! XD

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He was a vile manipulative moral hypocrite,with a totally deluded ego I was disappointed that this film did not do more to defame this ugly little cretin..

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[deleted]

He was an ignorant power hungry madman on a crusade

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But I bet all of you think Eric Holder is a saint right? I mean so what if the first Black president and his puppet Attorney General declare themselves above the law?

I tried to warn people this would happen, nobody listened. They were all caught up in "Yes we can", "Hope", and "Change we can believe in". Well you got your change alright - the most corrupt and least transparent administration in history. Yup, here's, "the most transparent administration in history".

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Agree 100%. He victimized so many innocent people while declaring that the mafia didn't exist. They must have had a file on him!

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I love you too but I'm going to mace you in the face!

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[deleted]

No kidding, I thought that movie was way to forgiving and kind to JEH. I was expecting to really see the effect of his evil, smug ego, but instead I was mostly bored.

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I don't think anyone regards him as a hero. However, he was an important historical figure and the FBI has become a great institution. I think part of the point of the movie was to encourage people to stop trying to pigeonhole and start looking at who he might have been simply as a person, because he's interesting.


"I'll book you. I'll book you on something. I'll find something in the book to book you on."

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He was both, he build the FBI into the world's greatest law enforcement organization, during prohibition, he broke up the greatest crime wave in this country's history. During World War II, the FBI under his direction thru a security blanket over the country so as not a single act of enemy sabotage was succesful, during the Cold War, he broke up many communist cells, that were attemping to hurt the country. His tragedy was that he hung on too long, and as he became older, his paranoia grew that led him to bend/break the Consitution. But in the final analysis to paraphrase Shakespeare, the evil was interred with the bones, while the good lives on.

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