Review: Michael Clayton (2007)

Michael Clayton

Rating

Director

Tony Gilroy

Screenplay

Tony Gilroy

Length

1h 59m

Starring

George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Michael O’Keefe, Sydney Pollack, Tilda Swinton, Denis O’Hare, Julie White

MPAA Rating

R for language including some sexual dialogue

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Review

While film history is filled with lawyers fighting for the common man, exposing corporate greed and malfeasance as part of their exploration of legal trickery is its own subgenre. Michael Clayton is the latest in a long line of such features.

George Clooney headlines as the titular Clayton, a legal fixer who keeps his wealthy associates out of jail through legal loopholes. As he struggles to pay off a loan shark, he’s forced to control a fellow lawyer (Tom Wilkinson), whose paranoid psychoses threaten to topple the firm they represent. However, as Clayton digs further into the weeds of the case, he discovers that the multinational conglomerate their firm represents is responsible for over 450 deaths with their new weed killer. Things begin crumbling after that.

Sydney Pollack plays Clayton’s old friend and leader of the firm Wilkinson works at while Tilda Swinton is the general counsel for the agricultural products manufacturer. Each performer walks a tightrope of credibility teetering between believable and outlandish with Clooney and Swinton hueing close to the center and Wilkinson veering off into those dangerous weeds. While Wilkinson’s character is meant to be mentally unstable and “off his meds,” the performance borders on parody. Meanwhile, Swinton delivers her most down-to-earn performance to date as a woman attempting to protect the company whose ladder she’s successfully climbing while risking it all in this particular case that could destroy them both.

There are moments when the film slips out of its legal thriller elements and into timeworn action set pieces that include exploding cars and incapable hitmen. These moments are at odds with the genre elements surrounding them and make it appear as if the filmmaker is trying to ratchet up the suspense without finding a way to make them feel naturally integrated.

Writer/director Tony Gilroy’s perfunctory directing allows the performances to shine through and his ability to convey legal maneuvering and the risks of upsetting billion-dollar conglomerates make the film feel a bit weightier than it otherwise might have. It feels like something Pollock himself could have directed two decades earlier, which also speaks to the film’s old-fashioned aura. It’s the type of drama that once got made quite regularly, but has struggled to find itself sufficiently updated into a modern era dominated by the overly familiar patter of episodic television dramas like Law & Order.

Michael Clayton has an important story to tell, but is sometimes overly stifling in its stuffy pretenses. Gilroy gets in the way of his own success by helming it in the style of his predecessors without finding a way to juice up the action outside of the occasional explosion and assassination attempt. A good, antiquated drama isn’t unwelcome, but this didn’t quite reach that level of comforting interest.