Michael Clayton (2007)
2007
R
119 Minutes
A law firm brings in its "fixer" to remedy the situation after a lawyer has a breakdown while representing a chemical company that he knows is guilty in a multi-billion dollar class action suit.
User Review
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WHAT I LIKED: Tony Gilroy's 'Michael Clayton,' is a film about a man waking up to injustice and finding the strength to do something about it.
It opens with a mysterious voicemail from someone who's suddenly realised they've devoted their entire career to helping a big organisation "destroy the miracle of humanity." We're then introduced to what we assume to be said law firm rushing through a settlement, and subsequently meet the message's recipient Michael Clayton (George Clooney) who's the company's go-to problem-fixer. As the pieces slot together, it becomes clear that the guy who left the message was Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), the lead on this case to defend Tilda Swinton's agricultural corporation whose products ended up poisoning a number of family farms. He goes off the rails and starts conspiring against his own firm, but when Clayton is brought in to stop this, the film becomes about him waking up to what's right and - you hope - doing something about.
Clayton is reticent at first, partly because he's been doing his job for years and is immune to its injustices, but also because he's in financial trouble and needs the money his job provides. It's engaging to watch that struggle, not least because a conflict between justice and self-preservation is a very real and messy thing to base a screenplay on. But it helps too that Clooney's performance shows just the right amount of the character's emotional cracks and conflicts, and that Gilroy clings as much to his fascinating face as he does to the grey, impersonal world of skyscrapers and boardrooms that surround him.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: The script is structured brilliantly to give the truth away slowly, but by the half way mark, it has to be said that all the mystery has all but vanished.
VERDICT: Tony Gilroy's 'Michael Clayton,' slowly reveals a gripping story about a character waking up to injustice and finding the strength to do something about it.0 member like this review.
