Michael Clayton

Directed by: Tony Gilroy
Starring: George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollack
Running Time: 119 minutes
Rated R for language including some sexual dialogue
3.5 out of 5 stars

Legal thrillers had their heyday during the reign of John Grisham, when studios scrambled to bring every word he had ever written to the cineplex. This produced both good (The Firm) and bad (The Rainmaker) results, but the overall effect was to burn audiences out on the genre. Now people get their weekly injection of high-stakes legal drama via the small screen, as evidenced by the popularity of Law and Order: Crimescene-Courtroom-Autopsy Super Legal Show, or whatever the latest flavor of the week is. So what is it about director Tony Gilroy’s Michael Clayton that earned it 7 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and led Warner Bros. to give it a second theatrical run, which is almost unheard of?

First time director but long time writer Gilroy scripted all three Bourne films, but don’t expect George Clooney to get his shaky-cam action hero on. He plays the film’s namesake, a ‘fixer’ for a high powered law firm that travels wherever needed to clean up the mistakes of the firm’s most lucrative clients. It’s a less than glamorous spot in the food chain, as Clayton reflects on in one scene: “I’m not a miracle worker… I’m a janitor.” Enter Tom Wilkinson as Arthur Edens, a manic-depressive co-worker in charge of one of the firm’s largest accounts, the monolithic uNorth, who’s bio-engineered wheat fertilizer may or may not be slowly killing off dozens of farmers who use it. During a crucial deposition Edens decides to go off his medication, strip down, and chase the plaintiffs through the parking lot with nothing but his socks on. Clayton is called in to wrangle Edens back to sanity and placate uNorth’s lead council, Karen Crowder (played with fragile menace by the wonderful Tilda Swinton). As one might expect (brace yourself…legal thriller cliché coming), nothing is quite as it seems.

The acting is top shelf, as indicated by 3 of the 7 nominations for Clooney, Wilkinson, and Swinton. Wilkinson is given the most to work with as the unbalanced lawyer with a conscience, and he vacillates effortlessly from crazed mania to razor sharp calculation. Swinton is underused, but offers a nuanced take on the white-collar ‘bad guy’ in her few scenes. Clooney is good, but as always he brings his ‘Clooniness’ to the role and ends up playing basically the same character he always has since E.R..

Where Michael Clayton really shines, though, is in the directing department. For a first time effort, Gilroy is measured, precise, and confident in a way that many veterans of the director’s chair are not. He walks the fine line between confusion and curiosity, thrusting you into the middle of this world without any explanation, yet giving you enough information to not feel completely lost. The deliberate pace may turn off some viewers used to their unrealistically fast TV procedurals, but patient filmgoers will be rewarded with a climax that, while not Earth shattering, is quite satisfying. Although a few subplots involving a restaurant debt and Clayton’s son feel underdeveloped, Gilroy can be forgiven them since the legal aspects remain compelling.

While Michael Clayton is a superbly written, directed, and acted motion picture, it isn’t quite the sum of its parts. No new ground is broken in the realm of legal thrillers, nor does it stand out as a film you’ll remember a few years from now. Instead, Michael Clayton serves to prove that Gilroy is a writer/director of considerable talent who has more than just ‘good’ films in him. His next outing, Duplicity, hits in 2009.