MOVIE REVIEW: Michael Clayton

George Clooney's Michael Clayton was one of the last movies we saw at the end of the year before going off to Northern Italy for two weeks.

Clooney plays a lawyer who has been at a big New York City corporate law firm for years but instead of being a partner he has turned into something more valuable: a fixer of embarassing problems. When his friend Arthur, who happens to be the smartest lawyer at the firm and their lead attorney in a $3 billion dollar product liability lawsuit, stops taking his anti-psychotic medication and has a spectacular mental breakdown in camera during a deposition, Clooney is called in to fix the mess.


Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson and Sydney Pollack have important supporting roles and are all excellent, with Wilkinson (as usual) the standout as Clooney's friend Arthur. Both he and Swinton have both been rewarded with Oscar nominations (along with Clooney).

The plot is a bit involved, but the film is more about the choices people will make: career versus family, good versus evil and personal loyalty versus professional duty. This movie attacks head on the notion the idea that when a superior says "Just get it done" what that may entail for the poor schmucks who have to carry out the marching orders. And it exposes to what depths those underlings will go to achieve their bosses' wishes, in a number of different settings: but primarily in corporate law. Writer-director Tony Gilroy (who was nominated in both capacities) enacts a taut script in an understated but very effective way which doesn't leave an immediately overwhelmingly positive impression, but is deep enough to cause one to assess upwards the impact the film has had, days and weeks later.

GRADE: A-.