Michael Clayton

No spoiler alert necessary. I wish I were you and didn't know how it ends.

Michael Clayton is the best movie to open in fourth place this year. I'm sure it will do better after it wins a slew of Oscars.

But even with great reviews and George Clooney, this Warner Brothers picture didn't open. Jeff Robinov, the studio's president of production recently announced that women can't open movies and he would not greenlight any project starring a woman. So now I suppose he'll expand that to include not greenlighting any project starring a man either.

Clooney meanwhile, gives the performance of his career. There's something wrong when Dwayne Johnson can open a movie and George Clooney can't.

Michael Clayton is Network meets The Verdict meets Erin Brockovich. For film students it's a master class in story structure, character development, theme, and dialogue. If one USC film major is found in a theater seeing Why Did I Get Married? instead of this he should be thrown out of the department and banished to Pierce Junior College.

For all the accolades Aaron Sorkin receives, writer/director, Tony Gilroy may just be the next Paddy Chayevsky. As writer of the Bourne trilogy and now Michael Clayton, he is proving you can be great without constantly reminding everybody of it.

Every performance in this film is noteworthy. For my money Sidney Pollack is an even better actor than director (and I give him a bye for directing Sabrina). Tilda Swinton (great name) somehow manages to be both a villain and a sympathetic character (is there ANY British actor who isn't great? I bet Benny Hill could have played Don Vito Corleone.), and Tom Wilkinson as Peter Finch is a shoo-in for an Academy Award (despite Thomas Hayden Church as the "Sandman" in Spiderman 3).

Other notables include: Katherine Waterston as "Third Year," Remy Auberjonois as "Fifth Year," and Pun Bandhu as "Four Year." I have no clue what those roles were but the really good ones make it look so easy you don't even notice them.

So if you liked Network, The Verdict, Erin Brockovich or any two of the three you should really enjoy Michael Clayton. See it now before it becomes a TV series with Matt LeBlanc in the title role.

You can read more from Ken at kenlevine.blogspot.com

Comments

[MrsWakely]

What I noticed is how the "I'm not sure what they're saying, or what's happening right now, but it seems really sophisticated so it must be good" screenwriting and directing school of film making is all the rage, if not all the box office, right now. The roots of "Michael Clayton" lie in "Traffic" and "Syriana" and all seem to flow from Steven Geaghan (spelling?) who wrote the first, and wrote and directed the second. I "liked" Michael Clayton, but when I came out I thought, the whole movie is an ornately dressed up version of (say this like Frankenstein's monster) "Corporations baaadddd!!!" Sure, everyone was good, but in service of what? Archer Daniels Midland sucks? Kill all the lawyers? There is something compelling, to me anyway, about linear, character driven drama that is SPECIFIC. See: "The Verdict" or "Dog Day Afternoon" or "All The Presidents Men" or "Coming Home" or "Tender Mercies" or "Ordinary People" or, out now, "Once."

I'd like to see if Clooney has the chops to make us care about a character in a movie not doing back flips and handstands with parallel story lines and vague but really cool sounding dialogue and whole sections where you don't know what the fuck is going on, but man he looks great (see "Syriana). To me, these guys are stuck telling straightforward stories while falling over backward to avoid predictability, but when you remove the bells and whistles, it's "Corporation baaadddd!!!"

[TucsonEd]

"But even with great reviews and George Clooney, this Warner Brothers picture didn't open."

HUH????

[feelfree]

I saw Michael Clayton last Friday. I thought it was a fairly predictable dud.

[Angela]

I don't know about the rest of the country, but here in the 'burbs of Minneapolis, the movie sold out on opening night. Every seat in the very large theater was taken.

I want to see it again, because I have a question about...shoot, can't say, might ruin it!

Great movie for grown-ups.

[sureofit]

I agree with everything you said about Michael Clayton (and the remake of Sabrina - speaking of which, Harrison Ford hasn't had a hit since Air Force One, or been in a good movie since,... Greg Kinnear was the only good thing in the movie).

[doxyluv13]

Another gratuitous swipe at Sorkin.

[Charity]

hey, this is a great recommendation and since i avoided the reviews of the film (yes, film reviews tend to spoil plot/ending/character motivation) i had no idea clooney came up with the goods. love him, so it's no surprise. he appears to be getting better and better.

and, god help me, i am a sucker for intelligent, adult films.

nice to know they still make them.

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[Erroll]

You inexplicably left out among the notable performances this year Tommy Lee Jones, who gave a bravura performance as the grief-stricken father seeking answers as to why his son was killed after returning from Iraq and why the military seems to be covering it up, in the overlooked but praise-worthy film "In the Valley of Elah."