Michael Clayton

Michael Clayton (George Clooney) handles all of the dirty work for a major New York law firm, arranging top-flight legal services and skirting through loopholes for ethically questionable clients. But when a fellow "fixer" decides to turn on the very firm they were hired to clean up for, Clayton ...more

Legal dramas and corporate corruption are hardly unfamiliar fodder for Hollywood, but rarely are these topics broached in a manner that doesn't reduce them to hackeneyed, plug 'n' chug plot formulas. Conversely, Michael Clayton is no, say, Erin Brockovich; it lacks the latter's overt moralizing and muddles the delineation between good and evil. Yes, the complimentary duo of a big, bad agribusiness enterprise and its profit-hungry law firm exemplify greed, but the title character—nothing, if not ...more

Tony Gilroy's elegantly structured script for Michael Clayton offers a series of plot developments and character details that don't build so much as accumulate in the viewer's mind, until a thunderously entertaining final scene -- the kind of confrontation an old-time Hollywood mogul might call a "corker" -- pays them all off in a thrilling verbal face-off. As a first-time director, Gilroy maintains a steady, measured pace. His style serves his low-key but involving script, quietly adding layers ...more