The Private Files Of J. Edgar Hoover

In a chronologically sweeping film that tries to show too much of the half-century of Hoover's reign as head of the FBI, writer-producer-director Cohen produces a sometimes fascinating but thoroughly sensational picture. Crawford, who bears some resemblance to the swarthy, corpulent Hoover, fist-thumps his way through his fight with the Kennedy brothers in the 1960s and his persecution of Martin Luther King, Jr. Wainwright plays a laconic, tight-lipped Hoover during the early years of the FBI director's tenure, shown in briefly sketched episodes dealing with the gangsters of the 1930s and the spies of the 1940s. But Crawford occupies most of the footage as the jowl...