"Michael Clayton"

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If your idea of a really great film was Michael Bay's Transformers, don't even go to Tony Gilroy's Michael Clayton (Warner Bros., 10.5). It's just not your speed. And I'm not even referring to the fact that some theatres will be asking customers to flash college diplomas before selling them tickets next weekend, and that people with Masters Degrees will be given preferential seating. It's just not violent or mechanical enough, and there are no jokes about E-Bay and no Shia LeBouf- type guys running around acting lively and endearing.

For a while there I was in trouble myself. I love films like Michael Clayton -- I love their moody efficiency -- and even I missed a couple of things the first time around.

But it plays superbly the second time. Seriously -- this is one of those films that you'll like (or value) a bit more when you catch it again on DVD in early '08. I caught it a second time at a plush little screening room in Toronto and came out doubly-pleased. I'm only sorry I wasn't quite smart enough to enjoy it as much the first time. Plus it has, by my sights, one of the coolest, most stylishly uptown closing-credits sequences I've seen in ages. (Which I'm not going to describe.)

Michael Clayton is an assured, tightly written, very well acted moral drama about amoral corporate maneuvers. It's about the cost of being an amiable can-do guy -- the title character played by George Clooney -- in this kind of toney and corrup- ted environment.

This is the kind of sturdy, well-honed drama Sydney Pollack (whose performance as a cynical, world-weary law-firm chief is slightly better than Clooney's, even though he's strictly supporting) used to direct in the '80s and '90s. It's also a little bit like Roger Michell's Changing Lanes, only it doesn't have as many popcorn- payoff moments.

Howard Hawks once said that a movie will always succeed as long as it has...I forget, two or three or four great scenes (and as long as the rest of the film holds its own). Lanes had four or five great scenes. Clayton has two -- one at the very end with a line that invokes the name of a certain spiritual diety in India, and one involving the quietly efficient killing of a man without the usual histrionic crap that all dramas go in for when a character violently buys the farm. There's also a very cool, quiet-down, early-morning scene between Clooney and three horses shot somewhere in Westchester County, so make it three.

The fact that Clayton doesn't have what you might call a heavily-beating pulse is okay...really. People in corporate realms aren't much for that sort of thing. The only guy who really lets loose with serious fire (besides Clooeney and Pollack, I mean) is Tom Wilkinson, playing a brilliant litigator who's lost patience and possibly his mind (certainly his lawyerly bearing and emotional composure) after defending a huge plant-pesticide or plant-growing company called U/North in a class-action suit for several years.

And yet it's always "on the case" and never boring. The material that Gilroy, the director-writer, runs with feels as seasoned and authentic as this kind of thing can be. There's no shovelling -- no "oh, come on...give me a fucking break" moments whatsoever.

Clooney's title character is a "fixer" for a large Manhattan law firm called Kenner, Bach & Ledeen. He basically puts out fires for the firm. He facilitates, cajoles, finagles, paves over. He calls himself a "janitor," and the fact that he's never been made a partner tells you that his colleagues more or less agree.

Grappling with debt, a gambling problem and family issues (a fuck-up brother, a son he's trying to be close and steady with), Clayton is asked early on to clean up a mess after Wilkinson's Arthur Edens suffers a freak-out (rips off his clothes, babbles excitedly, scares people) in some Midwestern state while taking a deposition in the U/North case.

Clayton is initially appalled at -- frightened by -- Arthur's behavior, but gradually learns that his craziness is based upon righteous disgust at the malfeasance he's been spinning all these years, having come upon damning evidence of corporate guilt in the deaths and illnesses of U/North customers.

When U/North's frosty top counsel (Tilda Swinton) discovers that not only Eden but Clayton are onto this, she does what all morally deficient can-do types in films of this sort do -- she hires a couple of low-key hitmen to shut them up. Clayton, at the same time, is gradually coming to the end of his janitor trip and, by and by, a kind of epiphany.

Taking place over three or four days and told largely in flashback (although it doesn't skip back and forth in any kind of irritating fashion), the movie is, truth be told, a little hard to follow at times. But like I've said, it's beautifully spoken -- Gilroy is a master at measured, just-right dialogue that's the opposite of purple -- and it's my kind of adult moral thriller. And I absolutely loved that Swinton lets her flabby stomach be part of a getting-dressed scene. It's just a little too dry and cultivated for the Cabo San Lucas T-shirt crowd.

comment #1

GeorgePrager says ...

I will see it. Hopefully the theater won't be full of mouth-breathers, Yankees fans, those obese white trash mullet couples who come in 5 minutes late (bearing giant tubs of popcorn and 64 ounce cokes), young Republicans who couldn't get their skiing weekend together, silly looking old people who talk through the whole thing, miniature immature Asian college girls who can't turn their cell phones off, drug dealers who leave their kids in the theater for 15 minutes while they do business, Wes Studi look-alikes and their kids who smuggle giant bags of Burger King into the theater....am I leaving anyone out? Black people, if they see a movie like this, usually keep their mouths shut.

comment #2

lazespud says ...

Jeez Jeff --

Did you just spell out the whole dang movie? This is one of those rare films with a trailer that DOESN'T give away everything, but you seem to have alluded to a lot of the nuance and plot points of the movie...

A little warning next time; the movie's not even out yet...

comment #3

Joe Leydon says ...

Have to agree with Lazespud, Jeff: A little too much plot detail. (That hit men figure into the plot actually should come as a surprise, I would think.) But never mind: Good on you for giving a great film a big push. And as I have posted elsewhere -- Tom Wilkinson deserves a major push for Best Supporting Actor.

comment #4

source188 says ...

I have to agree as well, now I wish I hadn't known about the hit men.

comment #5

Devin Faraci says ...

The whole movie is overly script-writery - I didn't believe that Wilkinson's character would act or talk like that at any point - and sort of hollow in the center. It's a feel good film about Bad Corporations and it has nothing new or interesting to say.

comment #6

nemo says ...

This is the only direct quotation of Howard Hawks's famous "three good scenes and no bad scenes" philosophy. But everybody seems to know the story, so surely he said it many times during his life. This is from an interview in the late 70s a few months before Hawks's death:

http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/20/reviews/hawks-star.html

"... When John Ford saw "Red River," he said, "I never knew that big son of a bitch could act." ... When we began shooting, Wayne was pressing a little bit. He realized he had a chance to play something he had never played before. I went up to him and said, "Duke, don't press so hard. If you make three good scenes in this picture and don't offend the audience the rest of the time, you'll be a big star. ..."

But I've heard other versions in which Hawks said the audience doesn't care whether the story holds together as long as the movie has some good scenes. And versions in which Hawks says some scenes you just get through quickly and efficiently for the sake of the story in order to get to some better scene.

But I always wonder with some of these versions whether the teller was embroidering someone else's memories of Hawks's words.

comment #7

Jamie says ...

Ebert uses that Hawks quote relatively frequently in his reviews, but it holds up pretty well. Looking forward to the film-- wide release or am I going to have to wait a few weeks for it to platform?

Also, is anyone having difficulty accessing the Variety website? It keeps asking me for a username and password, which: strange.

comment #8

nemo says ...

Meant to write in that last post: "This is the only direct quotation [I've ever been able to find] ..."

comment #9

soundoftheground says ...

"But it plays superbly the second time. Seriously -- this is one of those films that you'll like (or value) a bit more when you catch it again on DVD in early '08."

you do know that us regular folk are permitted to see a film more than once in the theatre, right?

comment #10

Geoff says ...

I actually stopped just short of reading the rest of Jeff's review when he started to mention Clooney as a "fixer". I like how the trailer left me clueless as to what is actually going on.

I want to try and use all them smarts my Mama gave me.

comment #11

whitemanbrother says ...

Jesus Jeff. I understand your need to stamp each column and throw down outrageous claims in order to claim your piece of the pie and retain readers who like their internet outspoken and opinionated, but do you really need to wallow so heavily in the absolutes?

You seem to admire films that feature the complexities of the human animal, and yet you can't even admit the possibility that a human being could, deep down in their DNA, possess the rare genetic structure and cultural upbringing to appreciate a film as subtle and understated as Clayton while also holding the ability to wade knee deep into popcorn on occasion and remind themself of the gee-wiz possibilities that film can also sling.

Loved me some Transformers. Can't wait for Clayton.

comment #12

JD says ...

The movie's a bit difficult the first time, but not because it's brilliant or complex. It's difficult the first time because Gilroy with-holds all the key information for the first act then jumps back in time and starts clarifying what we just saw. It's a narrative strategy, not an IQ test. And just giving the film a pass because it's serious and joyless seems a bit unfair. While I felt the film had some real merit -- and it really ends with a bag -- it's also wildly convoluted and just plain dull at times. People always make fun of Tom Cruise's acting, but this is precisely the kind of role that he brings to life in a way that Clooney simply cannot. Without his charming comic persona, Clooney can be deadly onscreen.

comment #13

JD says ...

Sorry, it ends with a "bang," not a "bag."

comment #14

Devin Faraci says ...

Really? I didn't think it was difficult at all. I thought it was sort of simple, when you get down to it, minus the fact that he opens the movie at the ending - which just for me served to make me constantly aware how far I was from the end of the film.

comment #15

gatsby1040 says ...

Hawks' definition of a great movie: "Three good scenes. No bad scenes."

comment #16

gatsby1040 says ...

Hawks' definition of a great movie: "Three good scenes. No bad scenes."

comment #17

MAGGA says ...

Hawks' definition of a great movie: "Three good scenes. No bad scenes."

comment #18

erniesouchak says ...

I think this movie is a prestigious, well-intentioned dud.

comment #19

Mgmax says ...

I've also heard that John Ford said it (to Budd Boetticher about The Bullfighter and the Lady). Given Hawks' record in interviews, I wouldn't be surprised if Ford said it first. Given Ford's record, I wouldn't be surprised if he got it from D.W. Griffith.

comment #20

JD says ...

Devin, I think we're kind of agreeing: the film isn't difficult in a complexity sense, it's difficult in a getting-your-bearings sense. I was completely bored with the first 30 or 40 minutes of the film because no sense of momentum or purpose is established. And once things start happening, the movie's point-of-view is a muddled mess. Why do we spend 5-10 minute stretches with the hit men? Placing the audience in a position where they know more than Clayton (and then vice versa, toward the end) just makes us feel more detached from an already cold and unemotional character.

comment #21

jeffmcm says ...

I doubt that D.W. Griffith could have said it. His answer would have been 'twenty good scenes, no bad scenes, I'm really sorry for being a racist'.

comment #22

Unison says ...

Michael Clayton is no Howard Hawks film, that's for sure. It's dull, and not nearly as cynical or incendiary as it seems to think it is.

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