Michael Clayton

Director: Tony Gilroy
Starring: George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollack, Sean Cullen

George Clooney contains the debonair attitude of his Danny Ocean character and combines it with the calculated stare that he perfected in Syriana to craft his finest performance yet, as the eponymous forward-thinking hustler. Portraying a legal "fixer" whose friends give him a ring when going the gets rough, Clooney finds exit strategies from a variety of mangled scenarios, from disparate hit-and-runs to murder. "You don't kill me," Clayton states without a hint of irony, "you hire me."

Clooney's menacing role is complimented by the striking skill of the film's first-time director, Tony Gilroy, whose screenwriting credits include all three Bourne movies. The storytelling techniques in Michael Clayton contain the same kind of near-naturalism that distinguishes the Bourne franchise: Conversations usually take place in whispering tones and cameras linger on reaction shots for unusual lengths of time, allowing viewers to become immersed in a fully functional reality. Although undaunted by his increasingly claustrophobic dilemmas, Clayton looks continuously astonished by other people's mistakes, which he's continuously forced to mend - particularly once an old colleague (Tom Wilkinson) sabotages his law firm's crucial suit.

Rather than classifying Michael Clayton as a thriller, it might be more appropriate to consider it as a psychological action film. Clayton is continuously involved in a variety of mental chess confrontations, but the anticipatory sequences rely on the strong possibility that he's a pawn in somebody else's scheme.

Images Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.
Photos by Myles Aronowitz