After having meticulously constructed the Bourne Trilogy, Tony Gilroy in his directorial Debut has reduced his formula into a single film, Michael Clayton.
He (George Clooney) calls himself a ‘janitor’; he is a lawyer at a Manhattan firm where he cleans up mess made by haphazard clients. Michael wants to be a normal good person as he keeps questioning himself what kind of person he has become. He is the firms ‘fixer’ who is supposed to clean up the dirty work that happens in the firm but hardly has time to fix his own life. One day while driving back from a job, Michael stops on a lonely road, when suddenly his car just blows up. Four days earlier, the conclusion of a six year class-action suit against an agrochemical client, the firm’s top litigator Arthur (Tom Wilkinson) suffers from a depressive meltdown as he discovers that his client is guilty as hell and he wants to make amends. Michael rushes to take care of Arthur but he slips from his custody and returns to Manhattan. Michael, whose own life is like a landslide, owes 75,000$ to some bad guys and makes a devil’s bargain with the firm to make sure that Arthur is back to normal. The Agrochemical Company’s Chief Karen (Tilda Swinton) begins to panic and sends few people to take care of Arthur. Michael gets himself almost killed while trying to learn the truth behind his friend’s demise.
This film is almost on the same lines as Syriana, a film that tries to attack the respected authorities while still working within the format of mainstream cinema. Its like a 2 hr lawyer talk but the screenplay is so good that you will be engrossed into the movie and by the time the credits roll, you would be already caught up in this intelligent suspense thriller with some high intensity scenes and well developed characters.
The Director seems to be in no hurry to tell his story and the sequence of events seems very natural and absorbing. Cinematography by Oscar-nominated Robert Elswit is good. Right from the start, there are contrasting shots. A long panning shot through expensive, empty offices is coupled with a voice over of pain and agony. Suddenly the camera stops into a busy room. An annoying reporter over the phone. And the overheard phrase, “The time is now,” brings everything together in the present. George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton and Sydney Pollack all gave phenomenal performances which make it difficult to even pick out who acted the best.
You need to pay a lot of attention while watching this movie as it has lots of details else you wont end up understanding anything and will eventually think you got bored.
Tilda Swinton in a scene from the movie was rehearsing herself a question, “How do you achieve work-life balance”? I think the question does apply to us all.
