2 hours, color, 2007
Such a one is the pivotal
character around whom this legal thriller is woven. As played by Tom Wilkinson he lights quite a
fire. But the director Tony Gilroy
introduces him in a most unconventional manner.
We hear him in voiceover for about the first three minutes or so of the
footage. He is spewing forth a mouthful
of seemingly incoherent protestation, as the camera peruses the normal activity
of the New York City law firm called UNorth, by which he is employed. The sharp contrast between the apparently
peaceful work scene and the demented rantings of Wilkinson is rather strange
and unsettling. What, we are inclined to
wonder, is going on? All on the surface
is calm and civil while the voice we hear suggests that something is rotten in
the state of Denmark. The first hint we
get that all is not rosy with UNorth is a phone call from a journalist picked
up by one of the firm’s top flight lawyers Marty Bach (Sidney Pollack). The unseen journalist is sniffing out rumors
that the firm is about to merge with a British company, an inquiry Bach treats
dismissively.
The frantic words in
voiceover are being addressed to a man named Michael. The message has been sent
by phone or is about to be. Presumably
this Michael is someone attached to the firm, someone that the troubled man
considers his only confidant, the only one who stands a chance of being a
sympathetic listener to the outrageous tale he is trying to tell in his broken,
disjointed speech. It is not until a few
minutes later that we learn who Michael is.
The name is Michael Clayton, the lead character that George Clooney is
about to portray. (Yes, the movie’s
title is one and the same with the name of the lead man.)
Who is Clayton? We meet him as he walks away from a poker
game without finishing it. He looks
dejected and ill at ease, beaten, and within the following hour after he drives
away in his car, an attempt is made on his life. A flashback fills us in on why. Clayton holds a law degree and was once a
district attorney but has not practiced any law for some years. Instead UNorth has used him as a “fixer”,
someone who looks after the private lives of the law firm’s clients. In plain, down-to-earth language he is hired
to keep people out of trouble, to settle personal crises before they become the
kind of major crises that could tarnish the name of the firm. Clayton, who knows nothing about the
fraudulent claims regarding the weed killer, UNorth’s product, has smarted
under this job description, fixer, for years and has failed to be restored to
the prestige of a practicing company attorney.
He calls himself a janitor.
One thing that contributed
to this status is his failure to make a success out of a project, once entered
into with his brother, to erect a thriving restaurant business, the brother
having turned out to be a self-destructive addict who ran the experiment into
debt and sank it. Clayton is still
trying to sell off the property but having trouble getting a good offer. He himself has a history of a gambling
fixation. So, no, our title character is
not a heroic type. He is kept where he
is allegedly because he is good at cleaning up messes but has not yet proven
capable of cleaning up his own.
We learn that the frantic
man we hear on the soundtrack is named Arthur, a recent middle-aged widower and
an attorney who has unknowingly created the scandal that, as a matter of fact,
has already surfaced in the form of a three billion dollar class action law
suit. Arthur is finally seen at the end
of about the first half hour in Milwaukee hearing testimony, during which he
does something obscene in public that is a major embarrassment to UNorth; he is
arrested and of course Clayton is sent into the ring to bring the beast under control. But Arthur soon becomes aware that Michael is
not the sympathetic ear he has expected.
It seems that Arthur’s language about deception and cancer makes it
impossible for Michael to understand what his friend is talking about. When Arthur is murdered, the crime made to
look like a drug overdose suicide, Michael’s suspicions are raised to such a
height that he starts an investigation of his own and turns up some sordid
documentation that gives shape to Arthur’s paranoid complaints. This investigation puts Michael’s life in
danger as well, hence the murder attempt already mentioned.
Behind all this nefarious
activity is none other than the chief counsel for UNorth, a high level woman
named Karen Crowder, played brilliantly by Tilda Swinton. (In fact, she won a Supporting Actress Oscar
for this performance, one she rightly earned.)
Karen has a prodigious investment in the success of the firm, having
climbed to the top tier over some years and still perfecting her bargaining and
selling skills. She almost
singlehandedly has been put in charge of protecting the reputation of the
supposed weed killing product. She has
lots of personal capital riding on the favorable outcome of the law suit
leveraged against her firm. She is not
alone in the subterfuge; others collude with her, but she goes beyond even what
they expect in hiring the assassins that plague Arthur and Michael.
I like the way Gilroy
directs her. She does not come off as
some sensuous personality using her seductive manner to hook her buyers, no
guns blazing approach. In fact, she is
not very attractive at all. She has
other more subtle devices for beguiling the customers, and we get to see her in
her solitary moments rehearsing her presentations; she comes across as clever
but a bit tremulous. In fact the first
time we lay eyes on her she is in seclusion, half dressed and in a total
nervous sweat.
There is one other notable
character in this drama, a grade school boy named Henry (Austin Williams),
Michael’s son, a very sharp, curious and much read youngster who exerts a
peculiar influence upon the nearly insane Arthur, a man he only talks to over
the phone and never meets. Henry seems
to enjoy most of the time he spends with his divorced father when they are
together. The two of them have a very
special moment when Michael makes his son aware of the gifts he possesses and
urges him to keep excelling and to bypass the traps others in the family
including himself have fallen into. In a
movie full of tough talk and ugly dealings and brazen encounters it is a warm
and tender scene much to be savored. I
am so pleased that screenwriter Gilroy included it. (Yes, Gilroy both wrote and directed.)
“Michael Clayton” is one of
the most powerful and penetrating screen dramas to show up over the past twenty
years. Released in 2007, I am just now
reviewing it, because in that year this blog had not yet been set up; it would
be five years later before I got started.
I have seen it several times studying its intricate plot structure and
its brilliant interweave of personalities and its ever so insightful dialogue
and its memorable encounters between the lead characters. Nothing fanciful ever crops up in Director
Gilroy’s devices; every move he makes is consistent in style and tone with
every other. The picture smolders; it
never gets away from him.
The R rating is fitting;
there are words spoken that you would not want your preschoolers or preteens to
hear. We are taken into a world that the
decent ones among us would not want to visit for real, but it all shapes up
into a morality play of Shakespearian quality.
It carries the echo of St. Paul’s reference to “evil in high places”.
To read other entries in my
blog, please consult its website:
enspiritus.blogspot.com. To know
about me, consult the autobiographical entry on the website for Dec. 5, 2016.
Such a great movie, Bob, thanks for reminding me of it. I haven't seen it in a while. You've really captured it's brilliance, and I'd forgotten about the great scenes with Michael's son.
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