George Clooney basically makes two kinds of movies anymore - really slick, superficial cool-guys-hanging-out shit like
Ocean's 11, 12, 13; and serious politically-charged stuff like
Good Night and Good Luck and
Michael Clayton. In the former type of movie, George does the whole movie star thing, banking on his handsomeness and suavity and sex appeal in a faintly self-effacing way that makes him mildly likable. In the latter, George plays against his celebrity qualities, scruffying himself up (or rather down), and going for a regular-joe vibe.
In neither type of movie does George ever seem to exert himself much, which I think is shrewd on his part. Cause when George does exert himself - as in the screwball comedies he used to veer into from time to time - he is just sort of muggy and embarrassing. He ain't
Cary Grant, no matter how much some people want to insist he is. Don't people appreciate Cary Grant? Watch Cary in middle-of-the-road fare like
The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, when he was just being movie-star Cary, then watch him going all-out in the wonderful
Gunga Din as the hilarious cockney soldier/rogue Archibald Cutter and tell me the guy didn't have range. Clooney ain't in that league. But he's okay, and his movies are usually okay, and
Michael Clayton is another exercise in okayness.
This is a great movie for people who like
Law & Order and other lawyer shows featuring people in rumpled suits and boring ties talking through plots. George plays a New York law-firm utility man who's gotten himself into dire financial straits. The firm dispatches him to Milwaukee to deal with a god-like trial lawyer, Arthur Edens (
Tom Wilkinson) who has been thrown in jail for running naked through a parking lot. Arthur has all the talent and panache Michael lacks, yet with his genius comes nuttiness. For six years Arthur has been grinding away on a class-action suit brought against a chemical company accused of poisoning a bunch of Wisconsin rubes, but now Arthur has had some kind of epiphany and thinks he and the people he defends are actually evil. Arthur now speaks in riddles and refers to himself as Shiva the God of death; Michael is supposed to drag him back to New York and
make sure he takes his meds, but Arthur ditches him and...
My interest sort of went in and out on this one, I have to admit. There were times when I found the whole thing somewhat compelling, and other times when I wished someone would throw in a giant robot that could turn into a semi, just to liven things the fuck up.
Tony Gilroy has written and directed this film professionally, i.e. blandly and with only a dab of spiritual juice. The moment
Sydney Pollack showed up, I thought to myself, "Yup, this movie's complete now - Sydney Pollack showed up." Because this is the sort of movie Pollack always seems involved with in one capacity or another. Every time I see Pollack I think, "Oh, this movie must be very professional," and then I slip into a slight coma.
Tony Gilroy is basically the heir to Sydney Pollack as the king of highly respectable middle-brow films full of guys in suits who have offices full of really heavy-looking furniture.
The only time this movie really gets interesting is when
Tilda Swinton shows up to inject some of her signature perversity into it. Tilda plays a character so tightly-wound she even rehearses her ad-libs. The great thing about Tilda is that she exudes weirdness without even trying, so when she plays buttoned-down, the bizarro fluid just comes oozing through the cracks anyway, and lubricates all of her scenes. George brings things back to the comfortably TV-playish. He's like a piece of cozy furniture you can sink into and have a snooze. Tilda, she's got prickly angles to her - if you sat on her you'd go through the ceiling.
Michael Clayton gets 2 and a half Chips Ahoy, and a couple of the chips landed on the floor but I'll eat them anyway cause I'm disgusting.