Michael Clayton (film)

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Michael Clayton

Promotional film poster
Directed by Tony Gilroy
Produced by Sydney Pollack
Steve Samuels
Jennifer Fox
Kerry Orent
Written by Tony Gilroy
Starring George Clooney
Tom Wilkinson
Tilda Swinton
Sydney Pollack
Music by James Newton Howard
Cinematography Robert Elswit
Editing by John Gilroy
Distributed by Warner Bros. (USA)
Pathé (UK)
Release date(s) October 5, 2007 (U.S.) September 28, 2007 (U.K.)
Running time 119 min.
Country United States
United Kingdom
Language English
Budget $25,000,000
Gross revenue $92,000,000
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Michael Clayton is a 2007 American dramatic legal thriller film written and directed by Tony Gilroy and produced by Sydney Pollack. It stars George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, and Tilda Swinton. It chronicles the attempts of attorney Michael Clayton to cope with a colleague's apparent mental breakdown and the corruption and murderous intrigue within a major client of his law firm that was sued in a class-action case involving toxic agrochemicals.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

The hill Clayton climbs to look at the horses.
The hill Clayton climbs to look at the horses.

The story opens as Michael Clayton (George Clooney), an attorney with a gambling problem, leaves a late night poker game. Employed at a prestigious New York City law firm as a "fixer" – someone who rectifies difficult situations, often through unconventional or expedient methods – Clayton takes a call from a partner at the firm, who directs him to meet with a key client who has struck a pedestrian with his car and left the scene. After the meeting, Clayton pulls off to the side of the road as he is driving away. He climbs a hill to look at some horses, and while Clayton is watching them, his car explodes.

The story flashes back to four days earlier. Clayton has just received news that he owes $75,000 to organized crime figures due to a failed attempt to open a bar with his brother Timmy (David Lansbury). Then he is called and told that one of the firm's leading attorneys, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), has suffered a mental breakdown. In the middle of a crucial deposition involving a class action lawsuit against the firm's largest client, United Northfield (also known as U-North, and possibly a fictional version of Monsanto)[1][2], an agricultural products conglomerate, Edens began rambling incoherently and stripped naked. Dispatched to fix the situation, Clayton gets Edens out of jail in Milwaukee and learns that his friend, who had a mental breakdown in the past, is no longer taking his medication. Before Clayton can escort Edens back to New York City to receive medical care, Edens flees and returns to New York on his own. Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton), U-North's corporate general counsel, takes Edens's briefcase from the deposition room and discovers that Edens had obtained an internal U-North memorandum documenting the company's culpability for manufacturing a cancer-causing herbicide. When Crowder learns that Edens refuses to cooperate and cannot easily be committed to a mental health institution, she decides to hire two operatives (Robert Prescott, Terry Serpico) to follow Edens, including tapping his phone and installing bugs in his apartment. This surveillance and the firm's review of documents in Edens's office reveals that Edens was building a case against U-North, his own client. Crowder instructs the two spies to murder Edens; their methods fool the police into believing it was a suicide.

Clayton is distraught at the death of his friend, but becomes suspicious when he learns both that U-North was planning to settle and that Edens had purchased a plane ticket to New York for one of the class action plaintiffs, Anna (Merritt Wever). With the passive assistance of his other brother (Sean Cullen), a NYPD police detective, Clayton breaks into Edens's apartment and finds a receipt for a large copy store order. At the store he discovers that Edens had assembled documents incriminating U-North, and had ordered thousands of copies. Clayton takes a copy and leaves, but the two hit men are now tailing him and, having secured a copy of the documents, they inform Crowder of the latest developments. While Clayton plays poker (returning to the opening scene of the movie), one of the hit men rigs his car with a bomb. Clayton leaves the game earlier than expected, interrupting the hit man's re-installation of the vehicle tracking system, causing it to emit an inconsistent signal. Clayton drives to Westchester County to meet with the client who committed the hit-and-run. He is followed by the two hit men, but they have trouble tracking him. Knowing that he is nearby, but not his exact location, the hit men detonate the bomb. At this point, the story has returned to the events at the beginning of the film.

Clayton is unharmed and runs back to the car and throws his phone, wallet, and watch into the fire. Later, at a U-North board of directors meeting, Crowder proposes that a new settlement agreement, in which the tax write-off would essentially offset the cost, be approved. When she steps out of the conference room to allow the directors to confer, Clayton is waiting for her. He tells her he has access to copies of the U-North memo and that he knows she was responsible for Edens's death and the attempt on his own life. He demands to be paid off for his silence, asking for $10 million. Crowder agrees. Clayton then reveals the phone in his pocket recording the conversation and walks away as police officers approach; his brother, the NYPD detective, had been covertly listening to the entire conversation. As Crowder (who collapses from the shock) and the U-North Chairman (Ken Howard) are arrested, Clayton leaves the building and gets into a taxi. He tells the driver to "give him $50 worth." After a few minutes, his ambiguous expression reveals a hint of a smile, and the film cuts to black.

[edit] Production

View from the top of the hill of locale where Clayton's car explodes
View from the top of the hill of locale where Clayton's car explodes

[edit] Locations

The railroad bridge where Clayton's car explodes is the Moodna Viaduct in Cornwall, New York, which is actually in Orange County, not Westchester. Washingtonville, where Clayton is said to have graduated high school and where his father's birthday party takes place, is where writer and director Tony Gilroy himself attended high school.[3]

[edit] Release

[edit] Theatrical

The film premiered August 31, 2007, at the Venice Film Festival and was shown at the American Films Festival of Deauville on September 2, 2007, and at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2007. It opened in the United Kingdom on September 28, 2007, and at the Dubai Film Festival in December 2007. The film opened in limited release in the United States on October 5, 2007, and opened in wide release in the U.S. on October 12, 2007. The film grossed USD $10.3 million on the opening week. It was re-released on January 25, 2008. As of February 8, 2008, the film has grossed $45 million domestically. The film in total grossed $92.6 million worldwide. [4]

[edit] Home media

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on February 19, 2008. The DVD contains deleted scenes and a commentary by writer/director Tony Gilroy. On March 11, 2008 the movie was also released on HD DVD.

[edit] Reception

[edit] Critical reception

The film received strongly positive reviews from critics. As of March 19, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 91% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 179 reviews, some of whom thought it was a dramatization of a true story.[5] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 82 out of 100, based on 36 reviews.[6] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave it an 'A' saying that it was "better than good, it just about restores your faith." Roger Ebert gave it a 4-star review and Richard Roeper named it the 'best film of the year.'[7] It was also Richard Schickel's top film of 2007, and he called it “a morally alert, persuasively realistic and increasingly suspenseful melodrama, impeccably acted and handsomely staged by Tony Gilroy". The reviews on Box Office Mojo give the movie a normal B.[8]

[edit] Top ten lists

The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2007.[9]

[edit] Awards

[edit] Wins

[edit] Nominations

[edit] Soundtrack

Original Motion Picture Soundtrack: Michael Clayton
Original Motion Picture Soundtrack: Michael Clayton cover
Soundtrack by James Newton Howard
Released September 25, 2007
Recorded 2007
Genre Soundtrack
Film score
Length 38:35
Label Varèse Sarabande
Producer James Newton Howard & Stuart Michael Thomas
Professional reviews

Original Motion Picture Soundtrack: Michael Clayton was released on September 25, 2007 on the Varèse Sarabande label.[12]

[edit] Awards

Though the album was critically controversial, it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score.

[edit] Track listing

All tracks composed by James Newton Howard.

  1. "Main Titles" – 2:12
  2. "Chinatown" – 2:27
  3. "Drive to the Field" – 1:35
  4. "Just Another Day" – 2:20
  5. "Meeting Karen" – 2:46
  6. "Looking for Arthur" – 1:41
  7. "U North" – 1:49
  8. "Arthur & Henry" – 2:11
  9. "Times Square" – 3:38
  10. "Mr. Verne" – 2:28
  11. "I'm Not the Guy You Kill" – 6:57
  12. "Horses" – 2:13
  13. "25 Dollars Worth" – 6:27

[edit] References

  1. ^ Tort, Reformed
  2. ^ Monsanto's Harvest of Fear: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com
  3. ^ Lussier, Germain. "'Michael Clayton' starring George Clooney, Blooming Grove, Moodna Viaduct and a directorial debut by Washingtonville grad Tony Gilroy", Times-Herald Record, 2007-10-12. Retrieved on 2008-03-16. "Simultaneously, one of Gilroy's brothers was visiting their parents and it hit him. Tony suggested he take a few photos on his cell phone of the Moodna Viaduct in Salisbury Mills, a place he remembered as 'ethereal.' It was perfect. Exactly the spot he'd been looking for ... The plan was hatched to film Michael Clayton's home in the same area Gilroy had always seen in his head: Woorley Heights in Blooming Grove, a stop on Gilroy's old bus route where he used to ride bikes with friends." 
  4. ^ Michael Clayton (2007)
  5. ^ Michael Clayton - Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved on 2008-01-05.
  6. ^ Michael Clayton (2007): Reviews. Metacritic. Retrieved on 2008-01-05.
  7. ^ Michael Clayton - Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved on 2007-10-07.
  8. ^ Schickel, Richard; “The 10 Best Movies”; time.com
  9. ^ Metacritic: 2007 Film Critic Top Ten Lists. Metacritic. Retrieved on 2008-02-25.
  10. ^ Roeper's review on Youtube
  11. ^ Hollywood Foreign Press Association 2008 Golden Globe Awards for the Year Ended December 31, 2007. goldenglobes.org (2007-12-13). Retrieved on 2007-12-17.
  12. ^ All Music Guide: Michael Clayton (Original Score). Macrovision Corporation (2008). Retrieved on 2008-02-24.

[edit] External links

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