‘Michael Clayton’ It is a somewhat particular denunciation film, one of those well-intentioned films that George Clooney likes to star in, without a doubt one of the most charismatic and elegant actors in current cinema, you know, one of those guys who spend days unshaven and the aunts are crazy about their bones, while the rest of us mortals, if we don’t shave, we look like ragged people with a thousand pairs of noses. Jokes aside, I still remember Clooney from ‘ER’ when no one gave a penny for him, and now he is one of the hopes for the future of cinema interpretatively speaking, since he has returned some of the glamor and style to the movies that came out of Hollywood. And it doesn’t end there, on top of that he’s a good director, and he shows he has a certain nose as a producer and actor that not only makes him think about the box office, something that has sometimes given him good results and others not so much.
‘Michael Clayton’ tells the life of a “cleaner”, something like Harvey Keitel in ‘Pulp Fiction’ but much less bloody. He dedicates himself to fixing the blunders of the clients of an important law firm, until one day, in the midst of a series of personal problems, he has to take care of one of the members of the firm who seems to have gone crazy and threatens him. revealing important secrets could be the downfall of a major agrochemical company. Soon Michael Clayton will begin to wonder if what he is doing is right or wrong, morally speaking.
‘Michael Clayton’, the good criminal
‘Michael Clayton’ is the debut of Tony Gilroy, until now screenwriter of films such as ‘Agree with the Devil’ or the films of the Bourne saga. Gilroy has also written the script for the film in question, and curiously His work as a director has been better than as a screenwritersince the film has a story that is perhaps too simple, with a mechanism that is too prepared to please the public, especially in its final part, in which the film is perfectly closed with too many concessions to the public. SPOILERS. And it is that at the end of the most debatable moment of the film, since we see how a character who has spent a lot of years covering up people’s criminal acts, betrays his company to a certain extent as if the fact of having committed crimes of minor seriousness that they gave him permission to be judge and jury, without his criminal acts being judged. END SPOILER. Obviously, the character is presented to us at a time in his life in which things are not going too well for him, but even so, all this is a bit far-fetched and one cannot help but think what was said above.
Of course the film has a good pace and is followed with interest, although as it progresses we are smelling the end too much. On the other hand, the decision to use a flashback in the story is not very successful because it does not add anything nor is it used narratively speaking, although it is not something that bothers especially. What there is no doubt about is their performances, all quite good, becoming the best of the film. Clooney is just as we hope she is, in one of those characters that she loves to play so much. Sydney Pollack in another of those characters that fit the director so well, and showing that he should appear more on screen than he has done so far. Tom Wilkinson, carrying the weight of the film for quite some time, and of course with one of the most difficult characters for everything he represents, as well as being a turning point in the life of our protagonist. But the one who really comes out on top, as my partner Beatriz said in her review, is Tilda Swinton, whose character is much more coherent than Clayton’s own. The actress perfectly composes a character full of nuances with more than brief appearances on the screen, but made the most of by Swinton, who transmits more by fixing herself in front of the mirror than with a dialogue. An Oscar nomination for this actress would be totally fair and deserved.
a correct movie, which will not arouse too much euphoria, although it serves to have a very entertaining time, and which also touches on some truly worrying topics. If the film were directed by Pollack himself or by someone like Sidney Lumet, we would probably be talking about a superior film, but it is not. By the way, he has had many producers: Clooney, Pollack, Steven Soderbergh and Anthony Minghella. There aren’t many new directors who can boast of sponsorship as spectacular as this one.
