Michael Clayton: "Network" for the New Millenium
Written: Nov 09 '07 (Updated Nov 10 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Acting, structure, mood.
Cons: A bit slow on the uptake and predictable for some.
The Bottom Line: An effective fable for today's world of corporate greed, with strong performances, clever cinematic style, and an interesting moral paradox. Works despite its predictable premise.
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| NFP's Full Review: Michael Clayton |
"I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!"
TV news anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch) in Paddy Chayefsky's multiple Oscar-winning 1976 film Network.
"I am Shiva, the God of Death."
Law firm partner Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson) in Tony Gilroy's 2007 film Michael Clayton.
THE BAD NEW DAYS:
In "Michael Clayton" writer/director Tony Gilroy has created a "Network" for the 21st Century. But instead of cynical TV executives manipulating audiences and on-air talent in the mid 1970s, it's 2007 and a major established law firm is defending U-North, a Machiavellian conglomerate that's knowingly causing harm to innocent people.
Besides the obvious throwback to the themes of greed and alienation that were the core of "Network," cynics will call "Michael Clayton" a derivation of themes from more recent hits like "The Constant Gardner," "Erin Brokovitch," "The Firm" and "Syriana" among others. And certainly the premise is smothered in similar themes of institutional right vs. wrong, and the usual parade of predictable black hats, more black hats, and conflicted not-quite-white hats.
But unexpectedly the final product doesn't suffer because of that. "Michael Clayton" works very well as stylish psychodrama more than as the political and corporate backroom thrillers that the others are. How individuals cope with the unravelling of events, secrets, motives, suspicions, greed, fear, and sanity is the essence of the story. It's less about WHAT happens than HOW it happens, and besides some strong acting performances, the movie's strength is the brooding cinematic and clever editing styles in which it lays out its paradoxes.
THE FILM, IN A NUTSHELL:
Briefly stated, the film shows the simultaneous descent into hell of a law firm, a corporation, and key players in both as a press leak on the cusp of an out-of-court settlement begins to peel back a corporate cover-up of monumental proportions.
George Clooney stars as the title character, a seemingly amoral associate of the law firm and 24/7 on-call "fixer" who is paid handsomely to clean up the confidential messes of his firm and its clients. The one mess he cannot clean up is his own private life -- gambling debts and a failed side business venture that have him on the edge of bankruptcy, a nasty divorce, and a young shared-custody son whose adoration he is privately ashamed of.
The firm's senior partner Marty Bach (Sydney Pollack) values Clayton highly without wanting to know how he does what he does. Bach's immediate problem is the behavior of the firm's senior partner on the case, Arthur Edens, played with extraordinary flair by Wilkinson. Edens state-of-mind threatens their client's case, as well as the law firm's potential sale.
Like Beale in "Network," Edens cracks under the weight of the duplicity that he now realizes has permeated his career, culminating in his discovery of the nature and extent of the U-North cover-up. A guilt-ridden and angry Edens goes AWOL after an embarrassing behavioral display caught on tape that threatens to bring down both firm and client by scuttling both the U-North settlement and voiding the law firm's sale. Clayton's task? Clean up the mess, meaning Edens.
Besides being in danger from loan sharks who are on his tail for his own personal IOUs, Clayton must also navigate the shoals of U-North's desperation to get the settlement through. U-North's unscrupulous in-house counsel-turned-CEO Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton) doesn't trust that Clayton can take care of the Edens situation, and decides on her own plan to, as it were, take care of business...all of it.
WHAT WORKS:
On the acting front, Wilkinson, Clooney, Pollack and Swinton shine.
Wilkinson's Edens is the model man-over-the-edge, with a loony smile of remorseful awareness that glows with an increasingly believable manic and messianic air the more he discovers about the cover-up. It's an effective extended cameo.
Clooney is his usual close-to-the-vest self as the film's anchor protagonist, part soulless villain, part redeemer. His surface unflappability is tinged with just enough vulnerability and sorrow on the one hand, and ruthless efficiency and self-absorbtion on the other, to keep the audience off-balance. Just how bad, or good, is this guy?
Pollack, a director also known for small character acting roles, is casting-central for the law firm's head honcho -- part curmudgeon, part shark. And Swinton is frighteningly credible as the ice queen corporate executive for whom success at any price is the sum total of her cold, bare life. Her scenes alone in front of the mirror in her hotel room bathroom practicing for crucial boardroom meetings and court depositions are chilling.
But more than the actors, Gilroy's pacing and structure for the film, as well as its feel, suck the audience in. As in his work on the Bourne film series, Gilroy is big on stylized editing. But unlike in those three films, in "Michael Clayton" he slows it down using methodical time-shifting and flashbacks rather than speeding it up with shaky-cam images. The result keeps the audience off-balance, and the sound mixing and low-key music (by James Newton Howard) contribute mightily to the eerie and foreboding mood. It's very effective and engrossing.
WHAT DOESN'T:
Ultimately, one may have to admit the plot details are over-the-top, if the general premise isn't. Even in the age of Enron, the guys at U-North and the villainous henchmen they hire may be just a bit too much like Snidely Whiplash for many viewers to swallow.
And I have heard complaints from some quarters that the movie develops too slowly -- especially at the beginning -- for one based on so predictable a premise. Certainly it's unexpected after the breakneck pacing of the three Bourne films Gilroy helmed. This is the anti-Bourne.
IN SUM:
I'm a sucker for atmosphere, and with that in mind, I was engrossed in "Michael Clayton" from start to finish. If it's a bit of a character cartoon and plot folly, well, so was "Network." In the end movies like this one are meant to be fables. Their resolutions tend to be impasses, not unlike the dark alley parts of our lives.
We get out of them what we put into them, and if suspending belief to get a glimpse of ugly truth is part of the price to pay, I'm more than willing to do so when the execution is a clever as in this one.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
NFP
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Location: Washington, DC
Reviews written: 129
Trusted by: 174 members
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Settled in DC and content. Starting up again...slowly.
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