Michael Clayton (2007)

Michael Clayton. Film review. Who ever said that you won't learn anything from a film? I was clueless at best when it comes to anything to do with laws and its court processes. Michael Clayton at least gave me some kind of an insight to this strange world which i previously didn't know of. Michael Clayton is also a slow thriller that relies on its audience's patience rather in the story itself. Tony Gilroy unwraps his tale in a non-hurrying pace, slowly unfolding the entangled story by using a wrap-around frame which guaranteed to lose some impatience audiences along the way.

The first thirty minutes of the film, gave me (and quite probably, most audiences alike) very little understandings about what was going on, and who is who except that there's this law firm which in a process of settling its class-action suit (whatever that means is) against one of its biggest client, ae chemical company (or i had assumed it was a chemical company) U/North in a case that has been going on for six years. I had little understandings during the first thirty minutes of the film except that i had quickly taken interest in Tilda Swinton, the U/North's corporate attorney, i recognized Tom Wilkinson's thick accent with utter clarity doing some narration, and George Clooney, tired and detached, that even though he was a decent actor, i wouldn't keen on putting his name on last year's Best Actor in a Leading Role performance.

Both Michael Clayton (George Clooney) and Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson) is a 'fixer', a term that i heard for the first time through this film. And as a 'fixer', they often found themselves knee deep on dirty things. In a U/North case, where Arthur is the head (of investigation, of the plaintiffs, of the defender, of whatever, i really don't have any idea) that knows all ins and outs of the U/North case. He generates a 30,000 billable hours in the U/North case. But when he seemingly has suffered a mental breackdown, or rather, has found his good conscience, he was a threat both to U/North and to the law firm he worked at. Marty Bach (Sydney Pollack) as the head of this firm knows that the U/North case was f*cked up in a first place though of course, in order to keep the firm running, he has to oftenly needs to turn a blind eye on things. After all, quite too often, a law firm (and its attorneys) was always on the side of the highest bidder and not the truth. Marty told Michael to as usual, fix things with Arthur. Meanwhile, Michael's well paid, but hates his job, and on a brink of bankruptcy for a business that has gone wrong and for his penchant on a card game. On the other side of the table, there's Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton), the U/North's corporate attorney who just realized she made a big mistake and willing to go at any length to clean the mess.

In a sense, this film was about all about choices made by men and women whose nature of their jobs required them to stood in a 'grey' territory where nothing was completely right nor completely wrong. After all, these are lawyers we're talking about. You probably had heard jokes about lawyers being a predator, blood-sucking parasite and all those terrible things almost as often as you heard jokes about blondes being a stupid. It's stereotypes.

The film was ended in a manner that not unexpected at all. But, fortunately, it doesn't try very hard to conceal the end. Almost the problem with any intelligent thriller is that the more you tried to hide something, the more obvious it would be. Michael Clayton, in my opinion, just flows. It doesn't even try to explain things for you so you often have to figure things out by yourself. This is, as i've told you earlier, especially hard during the first thirty minutes. Some might loathe this approach, but some might exhilarated with this. It's your choice, really.

The film was well acted, i've seen almost no flaw in the acting department of its characters. And my vote for the best performance of this film goes to Tilda Swinton who shown herself that she was indeed a shark in a troubled sea. Her final scene was the best. But the most important thing is that the film requires a full attention from its audiences that even a brief toilet break would cost dearly. I was watching the film on a DVD and i had to rewind at least on two occassions. One, where i paused to look for the word 'plaintiff' on a Thesaurus. Two, when Arthur reads the memorandum. This is not a thriller that would appeals to those who prefers film as a brief entertainment, nor to those who prefers everything printed out to them in a big yellow friendly letters. If you feels like you're one who can't spare a two hours full attention to a film, then don't go see this film. You'd ended up hating it although that the film was actually nominated in a Best Picture category on this year's Academy Awards, and even if i had said that the film was among my short-list of the best film in the year 2007.

Surprisingly, this film was also screened at our local theater last Saturday midnight in a few selected theater. Well, good luck in finding this film on a daily screening anytime soon. This film is not a kind that would lure many audiences and our local theater really hates this kind of film. So i figured, two or three days tops in a few selected theater (try those places where they had at least four cineplexes, forget Djakarta Theater. With only two cineplexes, and Cloverfied, Ayat-Ayat Cinta looming closer, and Jumper was still on its fresh run, they wouldn't bother to even try).