Michael Clayton Review
by Jonathan Moya (jjmoya1955 AT yahoo DOT com)October 16th, 2007
Michael Clayton (2007)
A Movie Review by Jonathan Moya
Rating: B+ or 3.5 out of 5
The Review:
In Michael Clayton George Clooney looks like a man whose pig just died. Clooney's beloved pet pot-bellied porker Max passed away in December 2006 after a long and happy life of 18 years-- right at the beginning of production shooting for the film. For Clooney, it was the most sustained relationship of his adult life. And the grief he feels for his darling little piggy just sizzles like a crispy piece of bacon throughout his portrayal of the title character.
Clooney lets his jowls go slack. His eyes root. His nose is turned down and his nostrils slightly flare at the long time swill his employer dish his way.
Michael Clayton is clearly a man who has had enough of the slop and is looking for a way out. For seventeen years, he has been a fixer for the law firm of Kenner, Bach and Leeden. He fixes that hit and run accident when it was one of the firm's lawyers that does the running. When their desperate housewives shoplift he keeps it out of the police blotter and off the front page.
"I'm not a miracle worker", he notes. "I'm a janitor. "The smaller the mess, the easier it is for me to clean up."
The carrot of partnership long since snatched away, he is mired in the sty of the firm's mud, rooting for his conscience.
Even his life is a sty. He is divorced, struggling to be a good father to his four-year-old son (Austin Williams); a good son to his ill father, a former pig in blue; struggling to be less boarish towards his pig-headed police lieutenant sibling (Sean Cullen) and his pigged out cokehead other brother who waddles in irresponsibility-- and leaves Clayton with a pig in a poke and an eighty thousand dollar debt, when their jointly owned restaurant deal goes to the slaughter of the auction block.
Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson in an Oscar caliber performance), Clayton's best friend and the firm's other top fixer has gone spectacularly ding-dong-- stripping during an important deposition and running through a snow filled parking lot gleefully displaying his ding-a-ling to all.
For six years Edens has being doing cleanup on a multi-billion dollar weed killer law suit for the agrichemical manufacturer U/North, the firm's biggest client. And in all those billable hours Edens has found a conscience and a cause. Edens has uprooted a memo that proves that U/North is guilty on all counts and beyond all reasonable doubt. The swine's knew from the get go that their weed killer was toxic to both weeds and men. Silently, Edens has been sabotaging the defense and building a counter suit.
Clayton is called in to clean up the mess that not only threatens to stink up the firm's merger with a London group, but also threatens to knock Kenner, Bach and Leeden dead on its haunches. Edens a manic depressive has gone off his meds-- or so it seems.
Also called in is U/North's lead counsel, Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton in perfect harridan mode), a jittery bundle of nerves who fretfully rehearses and rewrites her every public word in front of her bathroom mirror. She has Edens tailed, bugged and eventually snuffed-- it being the most cost effective choice.
Clayton infected with the swine flu of Edens conscience acquires his cause-- the only cure being to clean out the sty and destroy the carriers.
As much as Michael Clayton likes to wallow in the swinishness of corporate and legal America, it equally revels in making a paddy's pig out of the moral conscience of business and legal ethics. It is a small film with a little ego-- so self-contained it seems afraid to let it secrets out. Michael Clayton never achieves greatness because it is too concerned with being nice.
Tony Gilroy who successfully adapted the Bourne experience out of the slush of the Robert Ludlum novels, and here making his directorial debut, has made a miniature drama in the Sydney Lumet style. Michael Clayton is intelligent without being overly complex-- hushed almost to the point of withdrawal. It is content to throw it punches and walk way. The whole dirty structure still stands, the only difference being that one man stands proud-- his conscience clean.
In Serpico and The Prince of the City, the Lumet cop dramas that revolve around a crisis of conscience, ego turns to superego-- the burst blowing the corruption away. They are urban creation stories that proclaim how these good things came into being. Free of politics they swagger in myth. And in Serpico, Al Pacino was mythic enough to make it great. If Prince in the City fell short it was because Treat Williams didn't generate enough of the Pacino aura.
George Clooney has the good looks and some acting chops- but in a duel with Pacino, Clooney would get knocked under the table. He is a nice boy without the ego that can dare make him great. He doesn't have the edge that Pacino can display in his sleep.
Thus Clooney is perfect for the ordinary lawyer who never gets to try a case-- and the one big case he wins is settled out of court. Michael Clayton only aspires to do the right thing, not the great one. George Clooney needs to crash a few more motorcycles. He needs to become a rebel with a cause and a little more fury. He needs to stop being so nice.
Until that happens, Michael Clayton gets a could of been better grade of B+.
The Credits:
Written and directed by Tony Gilroy; director of photography, Robert Elswit; edited by John Gilroy; music by James Newton Howard; production designer, Kevin Thompson; produced by Sydney Pollack, Jennifer Fox, Steven Samuels and Kerry Orent; released by Warner Brothers Pictures. Running time: 119 minutes.
WITH: George Clooney (Michael Clayton), Tom Wilkinson (Arthur Edens), Tilda Swinton (Karen Crowder), Sydney Pollack (Marty Bach) and Austin Williams (Henry Clayton).
Michael Clayton" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Adult language, some violence.
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