by Jason Daniel Baker

Created on: February 25, 2008

Michael Clayton (2007) Starring George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, Denis O'Hare, Sydney Pollack, Michael O'Keefe, Ken Howard, Merrit Wever.

Directed by Tony Gilroy.

Running time: 119 minutes.

Rating: R

High-powered attorney Arthur Eden (Wilkinson) has a nervous breakdown while representing a GM foods company in a class action suit after four hundred and sixty-eight people die in a manner which suggests the company was at fault.

It fits in with various other episodes Eden has been having in which he is made slightly ill by certain aspects of the business he is in and the actions of the other people he works with and those companies they all represent. It isn't always your heart that tells you you're doing something wrong. Often times it is your stomach.

The firm's troubleshooter/bagman Michael Clayton (Clooney), formerly a promising litigator now used for cleaning up messes, paying people off etc is sent in to mop up. Eden is a friend of his and he has been erratic before in a manner easily dealt with.

But now Eden has actually mused openly about switching sides after six years of defending a corporate client whom he has evidence has knowingly been poisoning people. Can Clayton help his friend see sense? Not when he himself can't see it. Even as he is encouraged to find a solution by his own desperate financial straights his moral compass kicks in.

How far are these characters going to push each other? None of them knows and they communicate the suspense beautifully.

Tilda Swinton who won Best Supporting Actress for her turn as Karen Crowder, the villainous corporate excutive trying to quash evidence of malfeasance by her company, gives us a snivelling and cowardly manifestation of evil. This character does not even have the intestinal fortitude to put into words the egregious things she is ordering and her henchman has to continually ask her to clarify. Of course in meetings with the law firm on her companys retainer she has no problem with playing the role of dissatisfied customer and acting all belligerent hiding the scared little girl she is on the inside.

Tom Wilkinson gives the performance of his career in this film as a man who is utterly enfuriated not merely with his lot in life but with the bad but powerful he has helped destroy ordinary people. How he puts his anger into words has a kind of raw poetic beauty to it of a kind one seldom sees captured on film.

George Clooney gives a fine turn in what is in modern Hollywood a very straightforward leading man's role. I don't think that what he does here is worthy of an Oscar or even a nomination but it is fine work nonetheless.

Sydney Pollack again plays an evil, jerk, rich guy lawyer character much like the role he played in Changing Lanes and Eyes Wide Shut.

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