Michael Clayton

I recently read Joel Stein's article in Time Magazine, The Last Movie Star. Stein draws favorable comparisons between George Clooney and movie stars of yore such as Gary Cooper and Gregory Peck.

The similarities were well in evidence in Michael Clayton.

Clooney plays the title character, a conflicted charmer whose career and life has not measured up to expectations. A once promising lawyer, he is now, as he terms it, "a janitor" who cleans up messes for his high powered firm.

The movie focuses on a series of events which force Clayton to face his choices and their consequences.

While at least one of the trailers attempts to market the movie as an action packed thriller, in actuality, it is a much more character driven study of the motivations of powerful people in deciding how and when to defend their entrenched interests.

Tilda Swinton won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of the sympathetic villain and Tom Wilkinson is spectacular as the bi-polar lawyer whose manic episode precipitates the crisis at the core of the movie.

Writer/Director Tony Gilroy does an artful job of portraying relationships without resorting to unnecessary exposition. Clayton's ex-wife appears in only one scene which elegantly juxtaposes the equilibrium of her life with the angst of Clayton's life.