Movie Review - “Michael Clayton”
*** STARS
When “Michael Clayton” was released in the fall of 2007 it was met with little fan fair from audiences, but critics loved the taught, intelligent legal thriller. The admiration for this film carried it through the winter and it received 7 Academy Award Nominations this past week. Actors George Clooney, Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson all received deserved nominations as did Writer and Director Tony Gilroy.
Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is an attorney and former gambling addict employed as a “fixer” at a prestigious law firm in New York City. The crafty plot begins with a sudden jolt and then flashes back to four days earlier. Tom Wilkinson’s character Arthur works at the same law firm as Michael Clayton and the two are close friends. In the middle of a crucial deposition involving a class action lawsuit against the firm’s largest client’s “U-North”, Arthur suffers a serious mental breakdown.
Tilda Swinton plays Karen Crowder, U-North’s chief counsel, who takes Arthur’s briefcase from the deposition room and discovers that he has internal memorandums that prove the company’s liability for releasing cancer-causing chemicals. The rest of the film unravels with a meticulous and intelligent maturity that keeps you in its grasp until the explosive ending scene.
“Michael Clayton” is a dark, engaging drama that asks some difficult moral questions, but most of all it is a classy piece of filmmaking for adults. Michael Clayton is a very entertaining, engrossing and shrewd piece of crowd-pleasing storytelling. The sly marketing catch phrase, “The Truth Can Be Adjusted” says it all; this film is a gripping and poignant look at the corrupt legal system in America.
WATCH THE “MICHAEL CLAYTON” MOVIE TRAILER BELOW:
Leave a Reply