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Review #544 of 365
Movie Review of Michael Clayton (2007) [R] 119 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $13.25
Where Viewed: United Artists Denver Pavilions Stadium 15, Denver, CO
When 1st Seen: 12 October 2007
Time: 8:00 pm
19 February 2008 (click date to purchase or pre-order)
Film's Official Website • Film's Trailer
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Directed by: Tony Gilroy (debut)
Written by: Tony Gilroy (The Bourne Ultimatum)
Featured Cast (Where You Might Remember Him/Her From):
George Clooney (Ocean's Thirteen) • Tom Wilkinson (The Last Kiss) • Sydney Pollack (The Interpreter) • Tilda Swinton (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) • Austin Williams (The Good Shepherd) • Ken Howard (In Her Shoes) • Kevin Hagan (Thirsty) • Denis O'Hare (Half Nelson) • Robert Prescott (The Good Shepherd) • David Lansbury (From Other Worlds)
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"…there's not much room for middle ground when it comes to the mega-hyped motion picture, Michael Clayton, either it'll blow you away or put you soundly to sleep. "
As the film opens, Tom Wilkinson delivers one of the most amazing soliloquies since Peter Finch in Network. It's hard to imagine him not getting a Best Supporting Actor nomination just for this alone. The story, though, begins four days in the future, not because of time travel, because of that's the way the story is told. Michael Clayton (George Clooney), the seemingly suave and debonair, 'fixer' lawyer for one of the nation's most prestigious law firms, is playing poker in an illegal poker parlor. It's obvious he's not totally invested in the game. His cell phone calls him out, and an emergency takes him to Long Island to 'fix' up a situation created by a wealthy CEO type, who's just been involved with a hit and run and left the scene of the crime. The CEO, Mr. Greer (Denis O'Hare) spits vitriolic language at him for five minutes, after Michael suggests a local attorney and an early admission of culpability. He races back toward the city when he suddenly gets the urge to pull off the road and co-mingle with some horses.
"…Tom Wilkinson delivers one of the most amazing soliloquies since Peter Finch in Network."
What happens next is a combination of U North's lead counsel, Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton) trying to insulate U North from further damage, Arthur Edens barreling ahead with some plan to right all the wrongs of his career, and Michael being put between these two opposing forces while simultaneously balancing his collapsing financial wherewithal due to a bad investment in a restaurant with his 'junkie' brother, Timmy (David Lansbury), part-time fatherhood, and his own temptations to return to gambling that cost him way too much in years past.
For as much as Gilroy tells us about his characters, there are some crucial things the chooses to leave out for some reason. We must speculate as to the source of the Michael's divorce. We must speculate as to why Arthur Edens has a long conversation on the phone with Michael's son at his ex-wife's house that leads them to a discussion of this little red book that eventually becomes Arthur's guiding light. We must speculate as the depth of Michael's gambling problems and to the real nature of his job as a 'fixer' for his firm. Indeed, why hasn't he made partner in 15 years? Are all these problems related to the same thing? In this sense, the story and film are dissatisfying. It seems more people prefer to know than to have to speculate so much about what's motivating people in a story. And, if you're going to go to the trouble to cause the speculation, you may as well solve it in your screenplay.
Truth adjusted, the film turns out as marvelous as it is mysteriously maddening. It seems Tony Gilroy may have fallen into a trap that often happens when a person has to wait so long to tell the story they've been wanting to tell for ten years. They don't write a movie, they write a mini-series. They write something that takes six hours to sort out. It's the interesting thing about a feature film. The writer really only has, at most, 180 minutes—and that's a long, 3-hour film—to tell his or her story. Getting it just right in that amount of time is, candidly, part of the art of writing and editing a feature film. When one writes a mini-series, one has the luxury of time. Therefore, it takes a greater degree of expertise in the genre to make a feature-length film work well. Michael Clayton does not work well in this aspect. The ending has to happen too fast. You'll miss it if you're not paying attention—and I'm not talking about the 5 minutes of Clooney in a cab during the closing credits. There are too many loose ends that don't get, exactly 'fixed'. And, the magnificent characters Tony Gilroy built, don't get the screen time they so richly deserve. Again, the net result is, if the story is worth thinking about, which this one was, the film requires too much speculation to fill in the gaps and blanks caused by too much story and too little time to properly tell it.
Finally, there will be much speculation as to who if any of the cast warrant Academy Award® nomination consideration. Did George Clooney deliver his best performance ever? The answer is this. He may have, but there have still been, or will be to come, too many better performances that will seem to have required a bit more on the part of the actor than Michael Clayton required of Mr. Clooney. Christian Bale, for example, has already delivered two far more award-worthy performances in Rescue Dawn and 3:10 to Yuma. Nonetheless, if Tom Wilkinson doesn't get consideration for his role, instead, that will be a shame.
Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word review of this film]
Other Projects Featuring Michael Clayton (2007)
Cast Members
George Clooney
• Tom Wilkinson • Sydney PollackTilda Swinton
• Austin Williams • Ken HowardKevin Hagan
• Denis O'Hare • Robert PrescottDavid Lansbury
Director
Tony Gilroy
Writer
Tony Gilroy
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