Film Review: Michael Clayton (2007)

Michael Clayton (2007) Director: Tony Gilroy

“I’m not a miracle worker, I’m a janitor…”

I love a good high-stakes noir-esque legal thriller in the vein of John Grisham, and with Michael Clayton, Tony Gilroy delivers a truly brilliant directorial debut. This is a movie that relies on the focus and attention of its audience in order to piece together an elaborate puzzle. On the surface, Michael Clayton presents a complex character study about a legal “fixer” who is searching for the right thing to do in the ethically murky world of big corporate law.

The plot for Michael Clayton is told in a fractured manner –it only seems to make sense the deeper you get. George Clooney plays the titular character, Michael Clayton, a secret gambling addict and former litigator turned fixer (or “janitor”) for the prestigious New York law firm Kenner Bach & Ledeen, a “vast and powerful law firm.” When powerful people find themselves a bind, Michael Clayton is dispatched to clean things up. Presently, he is struggling to handle his own personal problems –money troubles, a sideways investment in a bar, a drunken and drug-addicted brother, and a young neglected son. Meanwhile, a six-billion-dollar class action lawsuit has been in litigation for years against the agricultural conglomerate known as Unified Northfield or “U-North” –the company is being represented by Kenner Bach & Ledeen. The lawsuit concerns a popular weed-killer which has proven to be carcinogenic. However, the senior litigating partner on the case, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), experiences a sudden manic episode during a recorded deposition in which he begins apologizing profusely, professing his love, and stripping off his clothes. It is a disaster which threatens to derail the defense and cost U-North an outrageous sum.

Michael is immediately summoned to track down Arthur and prevent the case from falling apart even further. While trying to keep Arthur on prescribed medication, Arthur makes partly coherent rambling statements about the moral degeneracy of U-North, and then disappears. The privately nervous but publicly ascendant corporate counsel for U-North, Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton) then begins tracking Arthur, as well. Karen is secretly made aware of the company’s own fixers –a pair of bag-men bug Arthur’s home and, when things go awry, they kill Arthur and frame it as a suicide. The only person who remains skeptical is Michael Clayton –his hunch leads him on a wild journey in which he discovers that U-North knowingly allowed 468 innocent people to die as a result of their weed-killer product. He tries to raise alarms, but U-North is opposed. It turns its hitmen on Michael Clayton, spying on him at first while Michael breaks into Arthur’s apartment and speaks with a plaintiff in the lawsuit, and then attempting to eliminate him in a car bomb. But then, Michael veers off the road just before the bomb can be detonated as he spots a trio of horses in an open field. It reminds him of a story/game his son mentioned. In awe, he trudges up the hill to admire these majestic creatures while his car suddenly explodes behind him in a fiery inferno. He quickly tosses a few personal items into the burning flames to make it appear as if he did, in fact, die as a result of the car bomb. Then he dashes up the hillside into obscurity.

At this point, Michael could have easily fled from his troubles –his job, his debts, his brother—and escaped while everyone believed he was dead. However, he decides to face his problems. Why? A clue is quietly inserted a few times. A subtle but nevertheless significant recurring motif in the film is Michael’s son and his medieval romance story, “Realm & Conquest.” At one point, the boy even speaks on the phone with Arthur about it, and the conversation helps give Arthur the strength to continue his quest against U-North. Later, when Michael had broken into Arthur’s apartment, he spotted a well-thumbed copy of “Realm & Conquest” and a picture of three horses on a hillside. This mythic story reminds Michael of his failed promises to his son –even amidst the morally grey world of big corporate law. It offers hope to the disenchanted. Perhaps heroic romances are not simply fairy tales for children, but rather myths which we need to live by –even in this dark age of jaded anti-heroes and endlessly avaricious corporate interests. At any rate, Michael takes up this hero’s quest and quietly returns to the city where he entraps Karen on tape and she is arrested by the NYPD. It is a deeply gratifying end to a tense film. For a brief moment, we ask ourselves: will Michael extort Karen for money so that he can escape? But instead he chooses a nobler path, perhaps in honor of his son. It reaffirms the idea that heroism is still possible, even in a cynical greyscale world. Suffice it to say, Michael Clayton comes highly recommended from this reviewer.