Michael Clayton is the best movie of the year so far. Every element of this film succeeds on the highest level of the craft of film making. The writing is spot on, the direction is graceful, and the acting is top notch. This is one of those rare instances where the stars seem to have aligned to make the near impossible: a perfect film.
It is not without its flaws. It can tend to drag on in the middle, but the wait only makes the denouement that much greater. There are small things here and there. They are what Roger Ebert would refer to as the minor flaws in a masterpiece that make it human. And, writer-director Tony Gilroy's film is nothing if not brimming with humanity.
That is the greatest conflict here: the clash between those with a conscience and those without. George Clooney has never been better playing Michael Clayton, a law firm "fixer", mopping up his company's messes. He stumbles into a spider web of secrets and deceit when his friend, the magnificent Tom Wilkinson as Arthur Edens, has a crisis in wrestling with his own demons of morality.
It becomes the proverbial race against the clock as the walls begin to come crumbling down around Michael, and his options start to run dry. Clooney handles the role with suave and daring and just the right amount of paranoia. Pitted against him is the firm for which he supposed to be working, personified by a wonderful Sydney Pollack, and the company that has hired them, represented by Tilda Swinton. Like Faye Dunaway in Network, Swinton is remarkable, and sometimes frightening, as woman who has lost any sense of decency and will stop at nothing to come out ahead of the situation.
If the Academy does not recognize this film with at least a few Oscar nominations (Wilkinson should be a lock), then at least in this reviewer's opinion, they will have much for which to answer. This may be the best legal thriller ever made. The heart-pounding final act is the most exciting movie going experience of the year. Gilroy has much to say about morality and the conscience but never forgets to tell an intriguing, wonderfully nuanced story of truth, lies, and the people who control both.
See it?
Yes.
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