Review of Michael Clayton (2007) by Francisco R — 06 Oct 2010

Tony Gilroy is the great brain behind one of the best sagas of the last decade (Jason Bourne), but this is the film that have anything that define Gilroy's cinema, this film got nothing to do with Bourne....basically, this film can be compared with "The Firm", especially in tthe plot that we can synthezise in this sentence: The search and aspiration for the thruth in a world of shadows on lies.

Another kinship with "The Firm", is Sydney Pollack, the director and producer of Michael Clayton and the film that starred Tom Cruise, except for him (Pollack) the rest of the "big" producers are, not "big fishes" actually except for the executive producers (Anthony Minghella, George Clooney, Steven Soderbergh). Even with that people behingd this work, Gilroy was working for more than 5 years finding money to filming this proyect.....Even waiting all that time Gilroy could made one of the 10 best films of the last decade.

Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is a former lawyer, who works for a firm located in Manhattan, his work is , to clean every thing that could jeopardize the bussines and , of course, the status of the firm. One day, Michael's friend, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), became in one of his works, Arthur says that he knows a secret of a big company, the problem is that that company is about to sign a deal with Michael's firm, and Arthur's lack of discretion can provoke a lose of billions and billions of dollars. Now Michael have to find the truth and help his friend, but first he must face with Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton) the legal counsel of this big company......and she will recieve special help....now this multinational company will try to silence Michael and Arthur by any possible way.

The direction is excellent, even more for someone who never had the chance to direct a film before this one, with pretty locations, the perfect weather and the right camera placement, it seems that anything it's perfect in this film and Elswit does a wonderful job (again) with the cinematography (remember, he won the Academy Award that year for There Will Be Blood).

The "special power" of this film is the script, with a dirty language, and with a frenetic story, all the characters feel real, but without losing the Drama and with a Climax that haves no action like explotions, but with action in the words...

And the acting...great, Wilkinson performs perfectly, pure passion and madness, Clooney, who once in while, choose a film that can exploit his talent, with his "Drama Face" (like Cary Grant or Henry Fonda) and with his sentimentality, he find the right path to another Oscar nomination , Swinton very authentic and strong she won a well deserved Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, and Pollack (as Marty Bach) acts like all his other performances on his films...and that's good.

The score, compose by James Newton Howard, transmitted all the emotions of the script with a lot of percussion and with that whispering, sighing guitar, a great choice, a great score (very electronic).

This film is about freedom because when we have the truth in our heart and we not let it out, our soul will be trapped until the truth comes out, and when that happen, we do not regret anything. Clooney's character is vulnerable and at first he is a normal guy doing his job, and for him , the truth it's not important, but then we see that this guy is human, and now he wants to understand and he wants to do anything right he wants to repent.

In short words, "Michael Clayton" it's a great drama with marvelous performance and a brilliant direction, about this fixer who wants to make the things right about a man who "after spend years adjusting the truth, now he must fight for it".