Michael Clayton (15)

Expertly performed and executed, but on the whole rather self important- perhaps it was so pre-concieved, so confident in its accomplished technique, it almost left you with nothing to respond to. Almost. The saving grace for me- and what I think was a source of criticism for others- was the significance of the three horses. Perhaps beneath the mechanical sheen, the sharp corporate Mamet-talk and the ultra-cool modernist narrative, there was something rather strange and surreal at work, a dark Lynchian underpinning at odds with the surface glossy realism. Let me explain a little more: the word ‘miracle’ re-occurred again and again- almost like a mantra throughout the movie. No less than three characters use the word. The image of the horses is foreshadowed in the book that Tom Wilkinson is reading, in an illustration which George Clooney later sees as enters the former’s loft apartment. This is the same book that Clooney’s son recommends to Wilkinson in an earlier phone call. As Clooney drives, it is this image come-to-life on the horizon which unsettles him and makes him leave the car -ultimately saving his life. This is the miracle which finally comes to pass and for my money adds a whole darker dimension to the film which otherwise would have left me rather cold.

To "AAlia" et. al "don't criticize what you don't understand... 'Cause the time they are a changing"

my husband and i found the story to be slow. The actors themselves were not at all loveable. i myself found out i can sleep with my eyes open. i do believe in the art of a good film, but this really isnt one of them.

a very dark, and at times, confusing film that i only started to get into in the second half of the film. despite clooney putting in a good performance, i found this quite disappointing and would struggle to recommend it.

I liked the dark sombre tones of this film dealing as it did in the grey murky areas of a lawsuit against corporate greed.Clooney held the eye as did Swinton,Pollack and Wilkinson as the fixer gone AWOL. I had a definite problem working out what the pivotal lawsuit was about till long into the film:it wasn't spelled out clearly enough and remained obscure as the plot ran in different directions.The subject of corruption and cold blooded murder was serious and there was paranoia leaking out of every frame.The story ended somewhat too patly,even if dramatically for me to be totally convinced.i felt at times the dialogue or phonecalls were too obscure and technical for a movie audience and it definitely lost marks in this area.However a worthy contender for oscars I think.

1. Michael Clayton is a sort of domestic Syriana with a law firm substituting for the multiple oil interests. Cupiditas, wearing a business suit and a string of pearls (Tilda Swinton in nervous bludgeon as the villain) plays the female counsel for a worldwide corporation hiding its guilt for poisoning people through its environmental products. To save itself, Ms. Swinton perspires uneasily, but nevertheless orders the murders of two people to stop exposure of the corporation’s guilt and insure a deal to save billions in payment to the victims. Elegantly shot (the camera glides smoothly through the law firm in the early morning hours discovering empty offices, ringing phones picking up messages, fax lines printing pages while the immigrant labor empties the trash cans and cleans the offices) the film unravels in the classic chic style of 1970 films. George Clooney as a fixer (but never a partner) for the law firm must try to salvage the damage Tom Wilkerson, chief litigator, has done to the case because he went off his meds and had an attack of integrity exposing the law firm and the corporation to discovery of its duplicity. George Clooney, as the fixer, Tom Wilkerson as the no more meds attorney and Tilda Swinton perform at the top of their game, which in this instance is somewhat higher than Kong had to climb to reach the top of you know what.

The more I think about this film the more impressed I am by it. It did take me 20 minutes to understand what was happening, but after that it just gripped more and more. Beautiful direction and photography, and superb acting by just about everyone concerned. Films made not only for grown ups, but grown ups with some intelligence are so rare these days, you almost want to grovel with gratitude! Sad that the cinema was almost empty, but then I guess most movie goers these days don't fit either category above. Thank goodness that Hollywood still has actors of clout like Cloony who can get films like this made.

Michael Clayton is a sort of domestic Syriana with a law firm substituting for multiple oil interested parties in Syriana. Cupiditas , wearing a business suit and pearls, is the female counsel for a big corporation hiding its guilt in poisoning many people with its client's product. To save itself, Tilda Swinton, as the chief attorney for the client corporation perspires uneasily, but nevertheless orders the murders of two people to insure a deal to save $$ for the company. Elegantly shot and shrewdly written, the actors have a field day in this absorbing, cautionary tale of greed.

Why does G.C. get involved with obscure movies such as Syriana and now this piece of pretentious nonsense?

George Clooney's new movie, "Michael Clayton", is not your typical Hollywood morality play of good vs. evil. Indeed, one can perhaps argue that even by the end, there are no completely good people in it; it is a world inhabited by people who have various levels of morals and blood on their hands. Michael Clayton, the movie's namesake, is a lawyer in a large law firm in midtown Manhattan who is known as a "fixer", that is, the firm lawyer that is called upon to assist clients of the firm who need help for difficult situations - DWIs, hit and runs, immigration, etc. Or as Clayton likes to say, "a janitor" - since he is the one who is always cleaning up the unsightly messes that clients get themselves into, ie: "adjusting the truth". As the movie progresses, we find out that one of the firm's top litigators and partner, Arthur, was arrested in Milwaukee after stripping naked during a deposition while defending against a class-action suit for one of the firm's largest clients, a multinational agricultural corporation. Thinking that this will be a standard mop-up situation of a partner who stopped taking his medication, Clayton heads for Milwaukee. But, as time goes on, Clayton (who we learn at this time is a Fordham Law graduate) begins to see that Arthur, while perhaps having lost some sense of psychological stability, has also regained a long-lost sense of morality. Inevitably, as Clayton tries his best to "fix" the partner's altered moral compass, he too is forced to come face to face with the role he plays in the process of enabling the evil that Arthur has come to reject. One can say that perhaps the Jesuit influence on his education nearly 2 decades prior is now coming to the fore. As Arthur states while in his prison cell, where we end up in life is a result of the moral (or immoral as it may be) decisions we make, both large and small. Part of the beauty of this movie is that we see that there are no simple answers, only a lot of gray, even at the very end.