GEORGE CLOONEY TAKES IT EASY YET EDGY IN MICHAEL CLAYTON

2007 rating: ***1/2

Tom Wilkinson’s Arthur Edens, a high priced and very effective corporation lawyer whose conscience may have got the best of him, is mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore...  Or maybe he's just gone completely insane...

So the Firm sends in Michael Clayton, played by a smooth, cold and calculating George Clooney, a “fixer” that can make sure problems don’t wind up in court. In a nutshell, Michael is a professional hit man who kills problems, not people.

Finding this particular task not so easy, Clayton investigates why Edens had a nervous breakdown inside a meeting room – something having to do with a chemical company’s weed killer that somehow killed farmers... And while an always capable Tom Wilkinson does a good job acting, his character, from the very start, is obviously enlightened to some kind of bitter truth, taking away from the suspense that might have prolonged the more intriguing aspects of Clayton being lost in the dark, snooping around for clues. 

Deliberately slow paced like the cerebral thrillers of the 1970’s balanced with a dash of Film Noir, MICHAEL CLAYTON centers on a slick fish swimming in a pool of sharks – and even the sharks are afraid of him: One person points out how lawyers think he’s a cop, while cops think he’s a lawyer...

But with business and debt troubles, he has to eventually manipulate his Firm, providing George Clooney a better than average performance despite a somewhat forced gotcha finale that turns an alternative suspense yarn into a somewhat mainstream one.