J. Edgar: Press reviews

'Mr. Eastwood, working from a smart script by Dustin Lance Black, takes a dynamic approach to history.'

'We're left with a pleasing, intelligent film happy to describe Hoover's behaviour as monstrous but too balanced and searching to damn him as a monster.'

'The flashback-and-forth structure is quite an elegant one, but it eventually results in a film that's fragmentary, overlong and tricky to follow.'

'A well acted but unfocused study of one of the 20th century's most colourful characters. '

'Won't Hoover up awards.'

'J. Edgar is earnestly watchable. But it makes no contribution to a better understanding of Hoover'

'enjoyable, too evenly paced, and much inferior to Larry Cohen's 1977 The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover, a lively act of revenge starring Broderick Crawford as the pathetic, paranoid puritan.'

'Without enough on-screen drama this can sometimes feel like a bum-numbing slog but it provides insight into Hoover's career, brought to life by a stunning DiCaprio.'

'Can sometimes feel like a bum-numbing slog but it provides insight into Hoover's career, brought to life by a stunning DiCaprio.'

'an irresolute ragbag of a film.'

'Eastwood's film says more about its director than its subject, and sadly, what it says isn't flattering'

'There are interesting moments and interesting scenes here – but this J Edgar becomes a sonorous, History Channel drone'

'Hoover's biggest sin is that he was economical with the truth when it came to telling his own story. Future cultural historians may be saying the same thing about J Edgar itself.'

'Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role struggles with the noncommittal attitude, unsure whether to play self-tormented or to go for the full-blown monster of legend'