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.
