Michael Clayton

This past year everyone's favorite movie star, George Clooney (swoon!) starred in the "thriller" Michael Clayton. Only a week ago, Ms. Tilda Swinton won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar at the 80th Academy Awards ceremony. After having missed a number of movies this year, due to being both busy and poor, I finally rented Michael Clayton to see what all the fuss is about. I am still wondering.



Michael Clayton is a middle-aged "fixer" at a high-power law firm in New York City. He helps fix things in court cases when they go wrong. Aside from this job that holds a considerable amount of responsibility, he also has gambling debts, a loan shark following him and his deadbeat brother, a son with his ex-wife, and the most unstable best friend a person could ask for. The law firm that Clayton works for is currently defending a corporation which seems like it should be right out of Silkwood or Erin Brockovich, and his friend, Arther Edens (Tom Wilkinson) is working on the case. Suddenly, he discovers some facts about the case that make him feel that he can no longer defend U/North (the corporation in question) and he also goes off of his medications. Soon he is parading through Milwaulkee...naked. What we, the viewers, are supposed to be asking ourselves is, "who is after Michael Clayton!?". What we really end up asking ourselves is "When will this be over, because my eleven year old figured it out seventeen minutes ago." Tilda Swinton plays an executive in U/North whose job relies on the case going through. She fails.

First of all, the Academy has got to re-evaluate how it votes on movies. Tilda Swinton was nothing special in this film. She was just prettier in the film than she is in real life (did anyone see her Oscar "dress"?!). The person from Michael Clayton who really deserved the Oscar was Tom Wilkinson, who was quite good as in the insane lawyer. The movie attempted to instill mystery into the plot, but for some reason, it was all quite obvious. The family angle could have been dropped almost completely, save for the brother who happened to work for the NYPD. This was also not George CLooney's best film, so overall, I was not pleased with it.

That being said, I do still recommend giving it your own watch. Perhaps I missed something or I'm just an asshole who hates Tilda Swinton because of her Oscar apparral. Who knows.