Michael Clayton (Widescreen Edition)

The only way I could get my teenager to drive all the way to the valley with me to see Micheal Clayton - "What's it about?" "Corporate thriller." "You've got to be kidding me." - was to offer to pay her 100 bucks if she didn't like the film. Extravagant, I realize, but I did squander her movie trust years ago by convincing her to see Up At The Villa.And if Micheal Clayton makes anything abundantly clear it's that people who suffer egregious lapses of judgment must pay and pay and pay....Given that - who doesn't love a loop-hole? Well, no one in Micheal Clayton doesn't love a loop-hole. And that is exactly what everyone in the film is set hard on finding and jumping through.The moral tone of this story is struck hard and clear right at the beginning. Clayton, a curious breed of lawyer, drives Upstate, NY in the middle of the night to handle one of his firms big-wig clients who has gotten himself in a bit of a jam. Seems just hours before Big Wig killed a man.He didn't kill anyone INTENTIONALLY, of course. See, BW is driving home late at night, and this other kind of guy .. you know the type, sans Jag, on foot. I know. Ew. Right? .. is in BW's way so BW accidentally mows him down. Whoops. And then leaves the scene of the crime. Why?! Well, because it's all so INCONVENIENT.What's inconvenient, exactly?Honesty? Integrity? The high road? Ones pesky humanity? Yeah. That's right.Clayton is a gambling man and he works for a crowd who gambles hard with the big questions.And yes, the dead guy is completely off every one's radar.I thought a lovely little defining gesture here is when BW's wife gets so fed up with all this yucky, early morning hullabaloo she throws her 5 A.M. cocktail against the wall.What a mess.Okay, so now we know what neighborhood we're in.As it turns out, a neighborhood that's tricky as hell to get out of.On his way back to the city Clayton's car gets BLOWN UP before he even hits the Parkway. And if that alone doesn't leave you with enough questions to sit through the rest of the film, just wait. The next 15 min. will give you plenty more.The way I see it, there just isn't any THRILL in a thriller if you're not sitting there in the dark with a lot of questions banging around in your head. And as my teenage companion learned by the age of 4, every good movie answers all your questions.Using this simple criteria Micheal Clayton delivers big in every way.In my humble opinion, Tom Wilkinson was robbed of an Oscar for his BRILLIANT portrayal of Arthur Edens. Great name... and yeah. Go ahead and read into it. A brilliant manic depressive, corporate attorney who in the midst of riding lead pony on a multi billion dollar case that stinks - just ask the woefully compromised attorneys back at the lair. They all shruggingly agree on the smell coming off this case - suddenly makes a desperate, late in the game, lunge to save his soul.For starters he throws away his meds, strips down to his socks and runs around naked in a freezing Midwest parking lot. And then he gets serious.This is clearly a man who wants out of that neighborhood .. bad.But Clayton, fix-it man in Arthur's firm, and one who's own destiny is suddenly and dangerously linked to this, his one time mentors. And Crowder, in-house counsel for their smelly client, played to duplicitous perfection byTilda Swinton. Both work hard to block his exit.I couldn't stop thinking while watching Swinton sweat and plot and practice her victory laps in front of the mirror that Lady Macbeth has at last broken through the glass ceiling. Kudos. She more than earned her little gold man.But the pivotal scene for me is when Clayton finally catches up with Arthur. The loony would be knight, who is stunning with at least 3 ties wrapped around his neck and a giant bundle of fresh baguettes inexplicably stashed under his arm. In the midst of trying to convince Arthur to do things the 'reasonable' way Clayton manages to spit out - I'm not the enemy! To which Arthur immediately demandsThen who are you?Therein lies the biggest question of them all.Yes. Plenty of bad judgement. And not nearly enough loop holes for everybody to get their life back. Choices will be made. None of them small.I won't say how it ends but rest assured someone is going to pay and pay and pay.And for once it isn't me!I'm happy to report that at the end of Micheal Clayton, the aforementioned teenager admitted that even though she had planned at the outset not to like the film, REGARDLESS, so she could collect the easy 100 (I know. I saw that coming, too) decided she had to be honest and come clean.She loved it!What changed her mind? Some freshly internalized moral lesson? Maybe she worried I might turn into a scary lady lawyer and depose her on the ride home? Did she think .. okay, although no McAvoy, Clooney is still pretty cool to watch for 2 hours .. you know, for an old guy? Or did the story, the acting, the direction and the thrilling pay off simply blow her mind?Who knows??Micheal Clayton is that good.

I can’t think of another George Clooney movie I like all that much but I do like this one. Despite its incessant moralizing and hyper-romanticization of ‘resistance’ to modern life, I could watch it again and again. We are in the ‘dark woods’ of conspiracy theory, but this is nonetheless an entertaining piece of folklore. I suppose conspiracy theory is ok to George Clooney so long as it is a left-wing folk tale about the big bad corporations. Don’t get me wrong, corporations are as capable as anyone of acting badly. Perhaps from the perspective of organizational or systems theory, corporations are even more capable of such bad acts, as the institutional culture may serve to incubate corruption. Here we have a ‘bad apple’ (played with real heart by Tilda Swinton) in the form of a corporate attorney who conceals material evidence and then takes matters into her own hands to keep the cover-up going. The real problem here though according to the filmmakers (and many social theorists too it would seem) is not the ‘bad apple’ but the ubiquitous ‘system’ - as the quintessential agent of the system having a nervous breakdown (played with superb intensity by Tom Wilkinson) makes clear in this movie’s opening monologue that smacks to me of that famous movie Network, if we can only “make believe this is not just madness because this is not just madness.” Here we see not only ‘the violence inherent in the system’ but the central tautology inherent in every cinematic rebel! I confess despite my cynicism, the inner teenager in me loves this opening monologue, the description and accusation against ‘the system’ which is embodied in first “this wall of traffic” reminiscent of Fellini’s opening traffic jam nightmare from 8 and 1/2, and then the system as a biological organism or entity, the ultimate pet of corporate fascists and ‘company men’ across the land, “the overwhelming sensation [of being] covered with some sort of film . . . a glaze . . . a coating . . . some sort of amniotic, embryonic fluid . . . [from] an organism whose sole function is to excrete the poison, the amyl, the defoliant necessary for other larger more powerful organisms to destroy the miracle of humanity . . .” Despite my own personal cynicism about such high-minded social analysis I will admit that it strikes a chord undeniable to any thinking creature caught up in the web of society. We all intimately understand that it is our own ‘miracle’ that is choked by the corporate (modern, differentiated) system. The idea that we can express our ‘authentic’ humanity within this system is an insult to the very idea of such a miracle, yet a central directive of every HR department these days. Paradoxically it is the idea of the authentic ‘individual’ that served as the essential foundation of modern society. Without a ‘system’ to rebel against, there would be no ‘individual’. Without the ‘individual’, perhaps there would be no ‘system’. Despite my own misgivings about the work’s simplistic “I blame society” style of critique on evidence here (if only we could all just ‘wake up’ we could do what’s right, right?), I still like this movie. For individuals, confronted by the paradox of modern society on a daily basis, showing a ‘little man’ (a description used here in full knowledge of its fascistic subtext) who manages to strike a blow against the crushing gears of ‘society’, whether such a story is real or merely a fairy tale, the emotional payoff is immense.

I saw this as a film not so much about the story but more about characters; George Clooney's in the main, obviously. The plot regarding the UNorth case is just a scene-setter and contrary to what some other reviewers have said I didn't find it unduly complicated or slow. Mr Clayton is a man who is apparently successful - defined by his corporate, private jet, world - but is hugely unfulfilled; Tom Wilkinson's character (Arthur Edens) similarly so. Each in their own way is miserable, we see much of Clayton's non-work life where even then he is required to be welded to his `phone, but not so much of Edens'. The apartment where Edens `lives' (when not at the office or on the road) is not exactly luxurious. So each of them `want out', Edens from his job and Clayton - it seems - from `everything'. Casting aside the mental health aspects, how many people, I wonder, would like to have rebelled against interminable meetings as did Edens, to go out in one grand futile gesture perhaps.The scene with Clayton and the three horses is exquisite, well acted and played with the correct level of pathos. Other early scenes build the characters on which the film depends and, yes, there are no car chases nor exploding helicopters so I can see why some of the other reviewers would find it boring.We see how Karen Crowder responds to pressure, so someone who again seems to live the corporate high life, in this case in charge of a large department and being a `key client', is reduced to being just a person on their own who makes interesting decisions from a strange set of values. Marty Bach (Sydney Pollack) begins the film as powerful and in complete command of his universe but we see by the end that corporate machinations within his firm render him to be just someone else having his strings pulled so he is not the master of his own destiny, albeit well remunerated.This is a film that you have to watch rather than allow to wash over you; it has a great central performance around which all of the other characters revolve.

Michael Clayton is in a niche of films that I'm drawn to: political thrillers. Just something about the concise scripts, realistic characters and plausible plots that absorbs my attention...this is no different. This is a damn good political thriller with great performances all round. Clooney and Wilkinson are great but Swinton (who received an Oscar for this) just owns her final scene...so so understated. Tony Gilroy directed this with precision and his camerawork is exceptional. The plot can be a little ambiguous and complicated to follow, but it will grab your attention. I'm glad that I've upgraded this to bluray!

A fairly forgettable thriller that deals with a lawsuit against a giant pesticide corporation. Tilda Swinton is a good villainess. George Clooney, as usual, plays the noble lead. Pacey enough, but without the substance for a second view. On the plus side, the film does criticise the venal behaviour of large law firms.

Tense, exciting, gripping, heart pounding, action packed thriller.These are all words used on the DVD box to describe this dire, tedious and dull slow burner that fails to ignite at any point.

A convoluted thriller which evaentually all makes sense. George C is outstanding. I think this is his best film.