Michael Clayton

As the years pass, I find myself more and more in agreement with the general consensus of film critics, and many of the top rated movies this year on Rotten Tomatoes are some of my favorites as well. But it seems like every year there is one movie that somehow blinds critics to how poor it really is, and this year that movie appears to be Michael Clayton. Movies like this one make me question my sanity, as surely I can't be the only one who sees the numerous flaws with the film.

With a very, very limited number of exceptions, I've found that movies that begin at the end and then flash back to the beginning are movies completely devoid of creativity. So when Michael Clayton began at the end, I already knew something was wrong. The movie starts with Clayton, who is a corporate "fixer," trying to help a new client. He realizes that the man he's been assigned to help is out of luck, so he leaves and just drives. He eventually stops in the countryside, gets out of his car, walks over to look at some horses (something that made no sense then, nor after we see what led to this), and finally his car explodes behind him. The reason the movie begins like this is simple: it's the only exciting part of the movie, and if you didn't know the car explosion was in it, you would certainly leave before it happens. By placing this scene at the start, it's a sign that the filmmakers had no faith in the material or the audience, so they tried to hook us with a scene that is tonally different from the rest of the film. Call me jaded, call me cynical, but I hate movies that do that.

From there we head back four days and find Michael (George Clooney) asked to help with a situation involving a friend of his, named Arthur (Tom Wilkinson). Arthur is a litigator for the same law firm that Michael works for, and it turns out he had a psychotic breakdown during a deposition, stripping off all his clothes and chasing the plaintiff down a street. Arthur apparently has realized that the company he's devoted his life to protecting has been killing people with toxins in its products, and he no longer wants a part of it. This makes the bigwigs at both his legal firm and the corporation releasing the products, u-North, very nervous, especially when they begin to realize that Arthur is planning to provide documents to the plaintiffs so that they can bring down u-North. Let it be said now that Tom Wilkinson, a vastly underrated actor, almost single-handedly saved this movie. He is astonishing with the limited screen-time he has, and he deserves some serious recognition come awards season. He is intense and frightening as a mentally unstable man, yet very sympathetic as we see him losing his mind while trying to finally do the right thing with his life. It's just a shame the film didn't focus more on him.

For a movie titled Michael Clayton, it's astonishing to see just how uninteresting and how unimportant Clayton is to the story. He's called in to help with the Arthur situation, but he is unsuccessful. It basically becomes a movie about Arthur's attempts to bring about justice, and the woman who is hiring people to follow him and try and stop him (Tilda Swinton). Clayton is just kind of there. There is a turn of events that leads to Clayton being the center of the action in the final act, but even then, he is such a minuscule part of the overall story. It doesn't help that the screenplay does an awful job of characterizing him. The film must have started a half dozen loose threads that were meant to give insight into Clayton, yet they never went anywhere. We see that he may have a gabling problem, we see that he is trying to open up a restaurant, and we see he has an alcoholic brother he doesn't want to speak to. Yet none of these threads ever go anywhere or tell us anything interesting, making it that much more frustrating to watch the movie.

You've seen this movie many times before, as the story structure is lifted directly from a number of other legal thrillers. The problem here is that they try and overwhelm you with too many subplots and confusing dialogue to mask the fact that this is a highly generic movie. The filmmakers are hoping you'll walk out slightly confused so that you'll assume that it must have been a smart movie. It's not. With the exception of Tom Wilkinson, everything in this movie falls flat or strikes a false chord. If you end up seeing this movie, savor Wilkinson. This would be a one star affair were it not for him.

The Darjeeling Limited

The Darjeeling Limited, from director Wes Anderson, is a rare beast indeed. It's the kind of film that I enjoyed watching, but when it was over, I knew that I could not recommend it to others. How could someone like a movie and not recommend it, you ask? It's not easy, to be honest, but Anderson has pulled it off. The problem is that Darjeeling feels far too much like his last two efforts: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Royal Tenenbaums. It looks the same, touches upon the same themes, and overall has the same vibe (each one is about a maladjusted family coming to terms with each other while confined to a location - be it a house, a submarine, or a train). In other words, if you've seen other Wes Anderson movies, this one offers nothing new at all. And if you've never seen one of his movies, I can't recommend it either, as it never tackles any of these elements nearly as well as Tenenbaums did. That's not to say there isn't stuff to enjoy, just that the things I enjoyed never amounted to enough to satisfy me as a Wes Anderson fan.

The film follows three brothers played by Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, and Adrien Brody as they attempt to reconnect with each other during a spiritual train ride through India. Each brother has serious personal issues they are trying to deal with, all made more difficult by the recent death of their father. Wilson's Francis may have tried to kill himself by crashing his car (a sad irony in light of Wilson's recent problems). Schwartzman's Jack is a writer who based his novels on real life experiences, yet refuses to believe that they are in fact autobiographical. He is currently trying to deal with his obsessive infatuation with an ex lover who ruined his life. Brody's Peter is a cynical man who can't accept that he is about to become a father, using the trip to India as an excuse to get away from his pregnant wife. None of these characters are particularly likable, but that doesn't quite seem to matter. You never hate them, instead simply seeing them as deeply flawed characters that need some sort of life changing experience on this trip to turn them around. Suffice it to say, that experience happens in the most unexpected way.

For two thirds this is largely an outright comedy with spiritual inclinations, and if you're familiar with Anderson's style, you know what kind of humor to expect. But the final third of the movie takes a surprisingly dark turn, one you will either be able to get behind, or one that will ultimately turn you off to the film. I was able to accept this incident simply because it allowed us to see how it reflected the three brothers' reaction to their father's death a year before. Still, it takes the film on a twenty minute detour that is very sobering and not at all like what has lead up to it.

As you would expect, this is another visually stimulating film from Anderson, with an amazing set (Anderson actually used a real train to film on and had it travel around India while he filmed). He is one of those few directors who has found a unique visual style that works from film to film and doesn't seem to get too old, much like Tim Burton, Michael Mann, or Terry Gilliam. And while it could be argued that his films revel too much in their music video qualities - such as numerous slow motion shots set to indie songs - those moments often end up standing out as the best parts of his movies anyway. Take, for example, the opening scene in which a businessman and Peter are racing each other to catch the leaving train, perhaps the best scene in the movie. It sets the mood for the movie and is a fun introduction to a character and the location of the film.

I think my biggest problem with this film was that it felt so heavy-handed. Unlike Anderson's other films, this one relies far too much on a visual metaphor involving the brothers' father's travel bags that they carry everywhere with them. They've had these bags with them ever since he died, and they continually cause discomfort and trouble as the three men travel across India. If you can't figure out what happens to those bags by the film's end, then I envy your simple-minded naivety: you are surely one who is easily impressed by any movie you watch.

It's time for Wes Anderson to shake things up. If he does this story again for a fourth time, he will be in danger of losing many of his fans. It's not that it's a bad movie at all, just that I've come to expect these same things from him every outing. Unlike the Burtons and Gilliams of film, he is happy using his visual style to tell the exact same story over and over. It's frustrating, as anyone who has seen The Royal Tenenbaums and Rushmore knows, he has some great talent that shouldn't be wasted on these facsimiles of his past films.