Nobody wears the Canali two-piece like George Clooney does, standing tall as his character Michael Clayton picks up the pieces left behind by law firm big shots like Marty Bach (Sydney Pollack) and legal masterminds like Arthur Eden (Tom Wilkinson). While Clooney looks good as Clayton struggles to make ends meet, Tom Wilkinson and Tilda Swinton strike gold in their superb performances as a penitent genius and his nemesis. Karen Crowder (Swinton) ends up paying a high price to play hard ball with the big boys, while the late Arthur Eden disappears in a whirlwind of raving madness and moral sense. I'll eat my hat if this part doesn't get Tom Wilkinson his second nomination for best actor. But then, the part of the madman has been everyone's favorite since the dawn of drama. Thanks to his impeccable box office pedigree as the man behind the "Bourne" trilogy, the producers let writer-director Tony Gilroy get away with a far from mainstream script. He takes inspiration from tales of John Doe glory like "The Pelican Brief" and "Payback" for plot, and from late nineties gems like "The Game" and "A Perfect Murder" for style and atmosphere, creating a quiet yet suspenseful tale of a weary warrior's tenacity. Having said that, I still wonder how the the strangely enigmatic paddock scene made it into the final cut.
Review of Michael Clayton
