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The First Thing We Do, Let’s Kill All the Lawyers
By bukkhead | February 20, 2008
FILM REVIEW: ‘MICHAEL CLAYTON’
Written and Directed by Tony Gilroy
Rated R
119 mins.
Michael Clayton was nominated for an academy award, and after watching it, one wonders why. This would be after one has already seen No Country for Old Men and There Will be Blood, competitors for Best Picture this year. Then one remembers that Juno and Atonement were also nominated, and makes sense. Indeed, once the winner is a foregone conclusion, it behooves the academy to also nominate other quality films. In another year, Michael Clayton might have won for best picture; say, any other year since 1998.
So I’m trying to do the opposite of damning with faint praise. I’m saying that Michael Clayton was a very engaging, watchable, immersive film—but it didn’t have any ground-breaking moments. None of the performances were better than expected. In a way, Clayton’s well-qualified cast set it up to be merely well respected. George Clooney is a very good actor, and he did his usual excellent job. The same for Tilda Swinton. How can you compare the expert chops of a studio musician to the break-out kid with magic fingers who suddenly arrives on the scene and wows everyone with his newness?
Not that Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin are brand new to films. But they don’t have the exposure and even lineage of a Clooney. Not yet anyway.
Actually, if there was one award the Academy could create to give to this movie, it would be to writer/director Tony Gilroy, who time and again writes these solid little pictures that gives good actors just enough room to do what they do well. What made Dolores Clairborne worth watching? How about The Devil’s Advocate? A script that just does its job, and nothing more. In a world addicted to “amazing,” it’s refreshing to see a film that’s merely excellent.
The story, for what it’s worth, is just about a fixer, the kind of specialist you call in when things are too messy to handle by the book. Not that Michael Clayton does anything illegal. He’s creative, the way a janitor hits on the idea of cleaning up vomit with sawdust. In this case, the vomit is the aftermath of his mentor finally losing his grip and deciding to finally take down the multi-billion dollar corporation that he’s been hired to defend. It’s not as complicated as it sounds, so don’t be looking for any kind of masterful plot twist.
Instead, be looking for fine performances by fine actors. You won’t be bothered with any kind of morality to consider—though the corporation is, ostensibly, poisoning people, they are not doing so in any way identifiable with real entities—at least, not so that you are inclined to consider it without deeper digging. Which you are free to do on your own. Again, it sounds like faint praise, but I mean this with real respect—Michael Clayton doesn’t bore you by being anything more than itself.
In this way Michael Clayton takes no risks, to be sure, but not every film can be Syriana.
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