Michael Clayton

[MacGuffin]

Trailer

Release Date: September 28th, 2007 (wide)

Starring: George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollack, Pamela Gray

Directed by: Tony Gilroy

Premise: An elite New York attorney experiences the four worst days of his career. He is known among his colleagues as "The Janitor" because for 15 years he's worked behind the scenes to clean up his high-profile clients' messy personal problems.

[Pubrick]

Bill Harford.


..with balls.

[MacGuffin]

[Pubrick]

so can focus.


oh i get it.

[modage]

do we care to start imagining the dvd cover?

[Kal]

do we care to start imagining the dvd cover?

[SiliasRuby]

Bill Harford.


..with balls.

You are completely right about this.......and that character fits perfectly for the plot. It's the first time in a long time that I saw a extremely smart thriller that didn't dumb anything down for the audience. Really rivieting stuff and George as always is superb. Check it out people in LA and New york.

[w/o horse]

There isn't anything that isn't revealed by the middle of the film.  And there isn't anything revealed at any point that isn't expected as required material for a crime thriller.  Which is what Michael Clayton is:  a tedious, uptown crime thriller.

Which is why the film worked in reverse for me.

Spoilers

I see Clooney, an esteemed actor who is selective about material, driving in an S class Mercedes and doing morally ambiguous chores for a law firm.  I think corruption, I think betrayal, I think cover-up.  It's all set-up in the first five minutes.  Then as the characters are revealed as these things, slowly and convincingly (realistically), as the veil is lifted from the characters so too is the intention of the film revealed to me.  And as the characters who might appear to some spectator near the situation as goal-driven hard-working law firm employees who couldn't be merciless are exposed as merciless (the obvious assumption from the audience) the film turns into the same kind of soulless regurgitated crime thriller that bores the pants off of everybody now adays.  If the film wasn't occupied by law firm types we'd see this more clearly, and because the film is loosely a criticism of environmental crimes I suppose someone might be confused to think it's a cleverly or intelligently crafted model of corporate corruption.  But the obnoxious, plot-oriented conclusion should settle all arguments here.

What a bore fest.

[Stefen]

I hate these kinds of movies. The ones that feel they are based on a Grisham novel, I mean book.

The audience for these types of movies are either all dead or blind. Give it up.

[Alexandro]

I wasn't too impressed either but I certainly didn't find it boring nor I "hated" it. Clooney glues this whole thing together with his carefully conceived, constructed and executed performance. Easily my favorite of his after Oh Brother.

I don't think it really is a message movie. It's a character study with thriller aspects to it and yes, I also felt the conclusion was kind of too hollywoodish, but it also made sense to the story of this particular guy. So it's worth a ticket and then some.

[Gamblour.]

I thought it was great. What a solid thriller. Plus lots of armpit sweat and its tone is very entrancing. And that final scene plus the credits, what great filmmaking.

[cinemanarchist]

For all of my Dallas friends out there...Michael Clayton will be getting re-released this Friday at the Inwood. If you missed it before, now is your chance. I still can't believe more people on this board didn't see this, or at least didn't write about seeing it.

[Alexandro]

Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson are great in this too. I think the acting is what makes this film enjoyable. However, the Oscar love is mainly Hollywood kissing Clooney's ass.

[Sleepless]

I missed this when it first came out, but I will be seeing it this weekend. (Though not at the Inwood - thanks anyways though Cinemanarchist). For some reason I have a suspicion this will win best picture.

[polkablues]

The sudden upswell of acclaim for this movie has caught me totally off-guard.  If anyone had given a crap about it back when it came out, I probably would have gone and seen the damn thing.  Seriously, when this movie opened, was there a single person out there saying, "This is a Best Picture contender"?  What's different between then and now?