Michael Clayton

Michael Clayton (2007) is about a man at a large law firm. Michael is a lawyer who does not go to court; he cleans up the problems that happen to the firm's clients. Their best litigator collapses during a deposition in an agrochemical case that has run for six years and prepares to change sides. Michael is sent to bring him back. It is Tony Gilroy's first film as director, from his own screenplay. He was known until then as the writer of the Bourne films. Its best quality is how it shows wrongdoing. The company's general counsel Karen Crowder makes appalling decisions, and the film draws her not as a villain but as an employee in a state of panic; the scene where she rehearses her own remarks in a hotel room is where that lands. Tilda Swinton won Best Supporting Actress for it. Sydney Pollack is in it both as producer and as an actor. It received seven Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Best Director. It cost 21.5 million dollars and grossed 93 million worldwide. It opens on a voicemail message whose meaning only becomes clear at the end, and the narrative winds back from there. It runs 120 minutes. Good for: legal thrillers, corporate corruption, and acting. Less good for: the film explains nothing and the legal terminology arrives without context. The pace is slow and there is no action. The long take at the end is too easy a close for some viewers.