AML Movie Review: “Michael Clayton”

By Mike on October 15, 2007

Michael Clayton: (A+) IMDB : ROTTENTOMATOES

The new guy on Ebert and Roper, I forget his name but he hosts a movie show on HDNet, said it best: Michael Clayton is what every John Grisham movie should have been like.

The Firm was good of course, but Michael Clayton is so better than any legal thriller I can remember watching. It stars George Clooney, but has some amazing performances by Sydney Pollack, Tom Wilkinson and Tilda Swinton.

I guess if you get Pollack, Clooney and Steven Soderbergh together, you’re going to get a great film. What a group.

Clooney shines in this as he does his other films. He’s such a good performer and he knows how to pick good movies. Michael Clayton needs to be watched carefully. It kind of starts off in pieces, where you are trying to figure what the heck is going on. The opening scenes with Clooney are particularly awesome. The cinematography is spectacular.

As the story unfolds, you find out there is a lawyer (Wilkinson) who is supposed to be defending a huge corporation from a class-action lawsuit. He’s a manic depressive, goes off his medication and loses it. Or was he really losing it? The results are a mad-scramble to stop what he might be doing.

Clooney is Michael Clayton, a janitor or cleaner if you will. He comes in to get problems fixed. He’s got his own problems though and you aren’t sure how much they have to do with the main story.

I really can’t say much about the plot other than that because it’s got some twists and turns and awesome moments that you just don’t want to give away. Needless to say, this was an amazing movie. It was subtle at times, tense, nail-biting and heart-pounding. The acting like I said was superb, even the very, very end when the credits are rolling. Stick around for a few minutes after they start…you’ll see a moment of great acting as Jina pointed out to me.

In terms of thrillers, I’d put this as the best of the year, perhaps topping Bourne Ultimatum because of the smarts it had, the writing and the plot. I even felt at times that it was as action-packed as Bourne, even if it was just done in looks and shots, instead of car chases and gun battles.

Check it out, come back and let me know what you thought.