(CNN) -- "J. Edgar" is the latest in what seems to be a never-ending trend of treating a biopic as being compelling and interesting simply because the subject may be. The thing is, films don't work that way and while J. Edgar Hoover was indeed a fascinating man and important in our country's history, Clint Eastwood's film from a script by Dustin Lance Black ("Milk") is dull from start to finish and often bears little resemblance to the truth. Let's be clear about one thing up front: J. Edgar Hoover was a bad guy. He was a power-obsessed, racist paranoid with little concern for the working people, immigrants or ethnic minorities that helped build this country. He was the perfect example of someone who believed that in order to protect the United States, he was entitled to shred the document on which the country was founded, the U.S. Constitution. How or more importantly, why, those virtually undisputed facts were twisted into the mockery of history that is Eastwood's "J. Edgar" is anyone's guess.
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It is, quite simply, a poorly conceived and constructed film
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The film refuses to take any position on Hoover whatsoever
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It's too bad that one of modern cinema's great master filmmakers couldn't do more
Here it's an endless stream of flash-forwards and flashbacks of young Hoover, old Hoover, young Hoover again, not-so-young-as-young Hoover, middle-aged @placeholder, gay Hoover, momma's boy Hoover, dictating Hoover.
Here it's an endless stream of flash-forwards and flashbacks of young Hoover, old Hoover, young Hoover again, not-so-young-as-young Hoover, middle-aged Hoover, gay @placeholder, momma's boy Hoover, dictating Hoover.