Wait a minute. Hold the phone here. You mean to tell me the writer of those shaky-cam action movies, the Jason Bourne films, directed a legal thriller that was up for a ton of awards? Sure, it was Tony Gilroy’s directorial debut and he’s written others things both before and since, but somehow I didn’t make that connection when I started up Michael Clayton.
By the by, that’s not a slam on anything Jason Bourne. It just seems like something very different than what I saw here.
Michael Clayton (Clooney) is a fixer for a big law firm. In the opening scene, he tells a well-off man who committed a hit-and-run job that there’s nothing Clayton can do for him before heading off. He stops his car to admire some horses in a field, but then his car explodes and Clayton is left there alone and alive by seemingly dumb luck. The movie then flashbacks to explain a bit about why. Clayton’s job is a bit of a unique position. He doesn’t go to court. He mostly makes sure things are running smoothly for his firm, making him closer to a cop (even though he isn’t) for enforcing the firm’s rules than anything else. The problem is a bipolar attorney at his firm, one Arthur Edens (a superb Tom Wilkinson), went off his medication and seems to be working against the clients, a large corporation being sued as part of a class-action suit over a carcinogenic weed killer. Edens seems to be rather taken with one of the victims (Merrit Wever), much to the disappointment of both managing partner of the firm Marty Bach (Sydney Pollack) and the conglomerate’s own representatives that includes Tilda Swinton.
The thing is, Michael has enough on his plate considering he’s trying to keep in touch with his own family, including financial problems caused in part by his brother, but the job is starting to wear on Michael. Does he want to be this guy who doesn’t really do good in the world so much as work for a firm that lets obviously bad actors keep their legal noses clean, or does he want to do what he’s apparently very good at? Edens may be acting against the client’s wishes, but he also seems sincere despite his mania, demonstrating a moral obligation that does not match his legal one. And it does seem as if the client company can go to fairly extreme lengths to get what it wants. I mean, that car bomb had to come from somewhere.
I was very impressed by this movie. The script and the pacing were both tight, keeping the suspense going when it needed to in a way to keep the audience hooked. The opening scene, eventually explained, works well to grab the audience’s interest, and Clooney’s performance as the world-weary Michael is one of the best I’ve ever seen from the actor. He just looks tired all the time of dealing with everyone he has to handle, and it’s gradually wearing him out. Quite frankly, I was probably more impressed by Clooney here than in anything else I’ve ever seen him in, especially when he directs himself.
Gilroy’s script, likewise, gives character moments to many of the different characters in the movie, showing, for example, Swinton’s character prepping for a presentation she has to give as part of her job and the way she seems rather nervous about it at first before coming through smoothly in the end. Michael Clayton could be described as a world where some people maybe don’t want to take responsibility for the things they’ve done, and then goes on to cover just how far those people will go to keep from facing that responsibility. For some, like Michael Clayton himself, there are limits. For others, well, maybe not so much.
Grade: A-
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