Note: Spoilers.What a disquieting, great film this is. There is a profound sadness to it, and George Clooney’s performance. But it’s the kind of film that makes you take a look at your top ten list, shake your head sadly and rip it to shreds. It’s that good.
Playing the title character, Clooney is about as good as he’s ever been, which is saying something. Michael Clayton looks like Danny Ocean, talks like Danny Ocean and knows people like Danny Ocean. But lord, is he not Danny Ocean.
Danny Ocean, after all, is the kind of man who would drop anything to pay back someone who screwed his friend, even if the one doing the screwing was Al Pacino. (See: Ocean’s Thirteen) Michael Clayton would like to be that man, would love to be that man, but Michael really only has two friends in this world: his son, and his colleague Arthur (Tom Wilkinson.) And Arthur just took his pants off at a deposition.
Arthur and Michael work for a big important law firm, the kind that usually play villains in big important movies. You know, the kind where an Issue is being discussed, and there’s a lot of money to be made by keeping that issue buried, along with the bodies that start piling up. The pants incident is only the tip of the iceberg, as Arthur goes off of his meds and begins a manic-depressive spiral to undo the wrongs of “20% of my life!”
That 20 percent remark is from a monologue, delivered offscreen in the beginning and repeated onscreen later on. Tom Wilkinson is excellent as Arthur, who manages to bring a doomed, quixotic grandeur to Arthur. Going mad isn’t pretty, but, as he tells Michael without quite saying it, it’s better than trying to remain sane by justifying madness. Populating the edges of this world is Tilda Swinton (who was awfully scary in Narnia) and Sydney Pollack (who was the only good thing about Eyes Wide Shut.) Swinton manages to make an entirely real and pathetic character out of a patchwork of scenes, and Pollack yet again brings a gravity to the kind of character who has seen it all, and will still be at work tomorrow.
But the majority of the movie is about Michael Clayton, and it is remarkable how interesting of a journey it is. Clooney is in much better shape than he was in Syriana, yet looks older, and more tired than he did in that movie. In Syriana, his character had a purpose. Hell, in Ocean’s 11-13, he had a purpose.
Here he has a drive but no target, a bunch of phone numbers but no one to talk to. He can solve everyone’s problems but his own. This sounds trite, but it isn’t. The movie pulls it off. It pulls off explosions, secret agents, cover-ups, powerful men with stern expressions and urgent cell phone calls, even a poker scene, all the trappings of Grisham-esque fiction. It pulls it off because it plays fair, and plays for keeps.
There is a scene near the end where we fear (or I feared) all might be lost. It’s a staged showdown, played expertly by Clooney and Swinton, and it careens dangerously towards the end of one of those big important movies. Is it impossible to have a movie about corruption without a scene where someone is wearing a wire? (Even Wall Street had one of those.)
But the next scene, the final one, is breathtaking. All the man wanted was to save his friend. Instead, he gets a cab ride to nowhere, paid for with money he doesn’t have. Yeah, sure he did the right thing, but so what? What now?
Michael Clayton, the hero. Michael Clayton, the poor sap.
Rating: * * * * * (out of 5 Stars)
P.S. Not only did this movie make me question why the hell I'm in law school, it was my favorite movie of 2007.
