"The truth can be adjusted." Michael Clayton - starring George Clooney and Tilda Swinton - is a complex, intellectual thriller that twists within the gray area of corporate politics and ethics.
“Michael Clayton” is one of those movies that shows you the near-end of the story before you have any idea what you are seeing and what it relates to - there is no way to connect any dots. You have to wait as, bit by bit, the story tracks in methodical fashion, and then the near-end is repeated and by then you grasp the threads and connections, which concludes with a brief and satisfying final act. It is a complex film that you have to pay close attention to, and one that makes few concessions to the audience.
As one of my favorite reviewers, James Berardinelli, has commented about thrillers, there are two kinds: visceral and intellectual. Tony Gilroy, screenwriter of the “Bourne” movies, is both the writer and director of “Michael Clayton.” The “Bourne” films prove his authority with the visceral thriller, the motion picture that turns on action and tension, and with “Michael Clayton” he reveals how skilled he is with the intellectual thriller; the influences that are detectable are Sidney Lumet and Ridley Scott.
The movie opens with a rant by Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkerson), an angry, disembodied voice. Edens is a “killer” lawyer that works for a prestigious New York law firm. For six, long years he has been working on a class action suit, in which a company called U North is accused of malfeasance in regards to one of their products, an insecticide that has caused some deaths on Wisconsin farms. $3 billion are at stake and the Law Firm is owed $9 million for its services. Edens’ rant is a turn-around commentary by a man who has seen the light, although everyone else thinks he has flipped his lid, especially people at the law firm and at U North. Instead of defending U North, Edens sees just how responsible and guilty they are, and of course that doesn’t sit well with the people who have paid his salary for thirty years, nor the corporation he is supposed to be defending.
So a “fixer” is called in, a lawyer who specializes in cleaning up such messes. His name is Michael Clayton (George Clooney). He is the legal equivalent of Harvey Keitel’s role as “the cleaner’ in “Pulp Fiction.” His own term for what he does is “the janitor.” He’s good at his job, but he is a troubled man who is tired of his position in the firm. He has a gambling habit, and he is deeply in debt over a failed restaurant venture with his undependable drunk of a brother. The people he owes money to want their $70,000 in the next week or else. In that enigmatic opening sequence we see him attending to a hit-and-run case involving a wealthy client of the firm, and when he goes to the scene of the accident, he stops to climb a hill and watch three horses. While there, his car blows up. Clayton is stunned, and we have no idea why he stopped or why his car blows up. The bombing gives him pause about another death - that of Arthur Edens. It was ruled a suicide, but now he knows better.
The movie is dark but slick, and all the lawyers and the corporate suits seem to be dancing in the gray area between right and wrong, on an edge where ethics get twisted into knots and where murder is considered a viable “option.” They spin rationales that show their attachment to the Almighty Dollar and Corporate Supremacy - the only God these people will worship and serve. Michael Clayton is caught in the middle. He is experiencing self-loathing over his role as the fixer; he tends to think Arthur Edens was right with his turn-around, but he is forced to make a Faustian bargain with the law firm to obtain the money he needs to save himself from harm. He’s smart enough to take advantage of the attempted murder via the bomb in his car. But even so, he is still puzzled – and awed - by the fact he got out of car precisely at the right moment.
Clooney is no Danny Ocean in “Michael Clayton.” He is a vulnerable, trapped human being, and his face reflects his agony. I don’t think it is Academy Award acting but it is solid and effective. If anyone in the film deserves attention as an Oscar candidate it is Tilda Swinton. She plays Karen Crowder, U North’s troubleshooting lawyer who is in way over her head. Several times we see her endlessly rehearsing all her speeches, she is that unsure of herself. And when push comes to shove, she falls apart, as her own moral mistakes puncture her balloon. She only wants to prove her loyalty to the Corporate Chieftain who appointed her to her high-end position. Swinton plays her as a nervous, uptight twit, a sexless puppet of her own self-image as a Lawyering Queen. In truth she is a brittle pretender, a woman whose fears and anxiety are covered by a very thin veneer, who would be easily tripped up under intense pressure. Sydney Pollock is Marty Bach, one of the main partners in the Firm, Clayton’s boss and mealticket. Pollock tends to always be the same blustering, gruff guy in his roles, but he is reliable and has a strong screen presence.
I saw the movie with my oldest daughter and as we left the theater she asked me, “So what do you think happened to Michael Clayton?” I thought for a moment and said, “I think I know. He became the star of a new television series called ‘The Fixer.’ The basic idea of the movie is a natural for a TV series: a lawyer who operates in the gray area of the law, with loosey-goosey ethics, and salvages his firm’s more difficult and embarrassing cases. It can’t miss.” It wouldn’t either. 234 times viewed
or Register