“I’ve never spoken with Rachel McAdams, though it’s a fine idea,” David Fincher told MTV on his recent ‘Benjamin Button’ press tour talking about his Eliot Ness film project, “Torso.” “I’ve spoken with Casey [Affleck].”
Does that mean Matt Damon ain’t a rumor? He doesn’t say. But what’s his motivation for wanting to tell the Eliot Ness story again? Apparently it’s the flawed heroism of the protagonist who made a lot of his own mistakes and brutal decisions in the name of justice and even compares him to inaugural FBI director, psychopath J. Edgar Hoover.
“[Ness is] kind of the self-righteous, American do-gooder. He was an interesting and extremely flawed guy who had a lot of problems. He did a lot of destructive things in the name of cleaning up the streets. Not to take anything away from [Ness] — he wasn’t an evil guy at all — but at one point in his career he burned to the ground a shanty town in Cleveland. This was three or four years after The Untouchables. He was just like 27 when The Untouchables happened. He was really young.” “He sort of fashioned himself as a J. Edgar Hoover,” added Fincher. “The bureau’s image of Ness and how he stole some of their limelight is in there.”