But before my first night's stay at this craphole, I got the chance to meet up with about 2 dozen London based readers at a place called The Bunker in Convent Garden. At this get-together I heard that this film, Michael Clayton just screened the night before. The curious thing is it screened for journalists, so the below review isn't a test screening review, even though the movie doesn't come out for three or more months. I also heard that DIE HARD 4 was premiering tonight... I was actually around Leicester Square to see the lines... but oddly enough, I wasn't invited. I wonder why? coughcoughfoxsuckscoughcough...
But I'm hearing good things about DIE HARD 4, so maybe I'll end up enjoying it. I would have loved to seen MICHAEL CLAYTON, though. Guess I'll just have to wait. Sounds interesting... and Tom Wilkinson is one of my favorite working actors and his character in this sounds awesome. Here's "Filmcoyote" with the review!!!
Hey guys, the Filmcoyote here again.
I’m in England at the moment and a journalist friend of mine invited me to go to a press screening last night of Michael Clayton. According to IMDb it doesn’t open until September so I can’t imagine why the UK press gets to see it now but they did so thought I’d send in a review. There are mild spoilers below so be warned but nothing that wasn’t on the marketing info they gave us before seeing the film or shown in the opening five minutes of the film so shouldn’t ruin anything.
All I knew going in was George Clooney was playing a lawyer in it and it was the directorial debut of Tony Gilroy, who wrote the Jason Bourne films. The glossy marketing sheet thing they were handing everyone said: “Michael Clayton is a lawyer at a high-powered firm who is best known for his ability to clean up the messes nobody else can handle. When his colleague, Arthur, starts working against the interests of a chemical company which is one of the firm’s most lucrative clients, Michael has his work cut out. When Arthur suddenly commits suicide, he begins to wonder what role the chemical company and one of their executives, have played in his death.”
I found this explanation of the plot rather useful as it helped me follow just what the hell was going on - though I’m not 100% convinced it’s entirely representative of the movie. The thing with Michael Clayton is it’s a pretty good movie but I don’t think it quite works.
Perhaps I should watch it again when I’m not so tired, but here’s the thing: it’s one of the those films that for the first five minutes you think, what the hell is going on? You get the lead character being addressed in voiceover accompanying scattershot images of car headlamps, airport tarmac, streets etc for the credits to play over; you get Sydney Pollack, obviously the head of a major law firm, dismiss a probing journalist (the journalists at the press screening seemed to like this bit); you get George as “fixer” Michael Clayton in a gambling den; then at the house of a client who fled a hit-and-run; then all of a sudden you’re in a field with George staring at three horses and his car blows up! And I’m thinking okay this makes no sense, did I miss something here or is this going to be a case of a writer being allowed to direct when he needs someone else to curb him – we’ve seen that before, think Richard Curtis’ bloated Love Actually or David Goyer’s Blade Trinity (if you listen to the commentary tracks on Blade II and all the ideas Goyer had that Del Toro either threw out of calmed down you can see precisely where Trinity went astray).
But then here comes the card: Four days earlier. And you know this is all set up and we’re about to get the explanation. Relax. Those ‘first five minutes’ scenes showed flair and since they’ll be explained over the course of the next two hours all is well.
The scene of George with the hit-and-run client is a great set up to the calm no-shit approach of Michael Clayton. He is a fixer, like Keitel’s Wolf in Pulp Fiction but more legitimate, and he can’t be bullied in his professional life. He is in control. However Gilroy has created a multi-layered real character and the juxtaposition with the horse scene shows the lack of control Clayton has in other parts of this life – and seen in context later will provide the bridge between the two. Clayton is an enigma. Like Jason Bourne you get to know and understand him and his life gradually as the film goes on.
Clooney has never really played a part like this before but the closest equivalent would be his role in Syriana. This is no one-dimension action-type role like The Peacemaker, nor does he show humor whether broad (Coen films, Ocean’s series) or just naturally likeable (Good Night and Good Luck), and he excels at portraying a man undone by his personal life and character flaws while brutal and flexible in his job – even when faced with ever increasing crises.
The characters and acting are superbly realized across the board. Tom Wilkinson as a once great lawyer who may be losing his mind is manic and heart-breaking, at times almost child-like, at others showing the ferocity he must once have had. Tilda Swinton is a counselor for the chemical company involved in the central but rarely talked about law suit, and she is marvelous at playing an ambitious woman who is not used to having to make morally-questionable decisions but steels herself to do so in order to help her company and her career. Sydney Pollack is the jaded head of Clayton’s law firm who is behind the scenes. Pollack is never reduced to the kind of two-faced mentor we have seen 1000 times before, at once patting Clayton on the back will conniving behind it. Instead Gilroy has created a fully realized genuine man who does what must be done and Pollack, in relatively little screen time, gives a nuanced performance. You truly can’t fault the writing of these characters, nor the performers portraying.
So how then does it not work? I think the story is too enigmatic for its own good. What is at once its most interesting angle is also its most frustrating flaw – you never really know what it’s all about! You think it’s going to be an Erin Brockovich/Civil Action/Rainmaker kind of thing, and I suppose at the heart of it, it is. And you are thankful it doesn’t get bogged down in sentimentality or convoluted explanation of how this chemical did this to whom or how the lawyers are screwing over the victims. This is a good thing, we’ve seen these films before and Michael Clayton is promising not to go that route, instead we will see the machinations behind the scenes of a major law firm who has business interests to protect when a man loses his mind and goes off message and most of all we get an incite into the lives of key people behind the scenes and how they are not one-dimensional, not merely good guys and bad guys. They are all human beings. Flawed – sometimes right, sometimes wrong; sometimes sincere, sometimes deceptive; sometimes selfish, sometimes generous – real people. And it is refreshing to see this.
Clayton has two brothers, one of whom, while talked about throughout, only appears in two brief scenes but these in themselves are a perfect illustration of all of this.
However, as interesting as the characters are in and of themselves you learn so little of what the central case is actually about that it is hard to care what is going on. You don’t know if Wilkinson’s character has had a change of heart, what convinced him. There is a great scene (part of it is in the trailer, the “I’m not the man you kill, I’m the man you buy” speech) where Clooney confronts Swinton but as great as the moment is and as good as the actors are in it you don’t really know or care why they are there having that moment.
Ultimately it is a film of great performances, interesting characters and a few wonderful moments but as a whole piece it does not seem the sum of its parts. As I say, perhaps when I see it again (and I will once it comes out properly) and am less tired and able to concentrate better I will discover more to it. At the moment I think it is a noble effort by a writer trying not to walk a predictable path but straying too far off the track to find the destination at the end. Worth seeing though for one of Clooney’s best performances, Swinton and Pollack on top form and the always excellent Wilkinson. Don’t know if Quint saw it. Hope he did as I’m interested to see if someone else liked the plot better.
