Michael Clayton

Michael Clayton is a 2007 American legal thriller film written and directed by Tony Gilroy in his feature directorial debut and starring George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, and Sydney Pollack.[3] The film chronicles the attempts by attorney Michael Clayton to cope with a colleague's apparent mental breakdown and the corruption and intrigue surrounding a major client of his law firm being sued in a class action case over the effects of toxic agrochemicals.

For other uses, see Michael Clayton (disambiguation).
Michael Clayton
Theatrical release poster
Directed byTony Gilroy
Produced by
Written byTony Gilroy
Starring
Music byJames Newton Howard
CinematographyRobert Elswit
Edited byJohn Gilroy
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release date
  • August 31, 2007 (2007-08-31) (Venice)
  • October 5, 2007 (2007-10-05) (United States)
Running time
120 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$21.5 million[1]
Box office$93 million[2]

Released on October 5, 2007, the film grossed $93 million worldwide. It was praised for Gilroy's direction, the performances, and the screenplay; Swinton's performance was particularly lauded. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, as well as Best Actor for Clooney, Best Supporting Actor for Wilkinson, and Best Supporting Actress for Swinton, which she won.

Plot

Michael Clayton is a "fixer" for a prestigious New York City law firm, using his connections and knowledge of legal loopholes for clients' benefit. One night he receives a call about a client who was involved in a hit-and-run accident, leaving his high-stakes poker game to attend to the matter. Later he drives into the countryside and in the early morning he suddenly stops to approach a trio of horses in a field, when a bomb detonates in his car parked nearby.

Four days earlier, Arthur Edens, one of the firm's leading attorneys, has a manic episode in the middle of a deposition in Milwaukee involving a multibillion-dollar, six-year-long class action lawsuit against client U-North, an agricultural products conglomerate. Michael arrives in Milwaukee and bails Arthur out of jail after finding out he is no longer taking his medication, but Arthur escapes from their hotel room in the middle of the night and returns to New York. The viewer learns that Michael is $75,000 in debt from a restaurant investment he entered with his brother Timmy, which collapsed when Timmy used the restaurant's funds to fuel his drug habits. Michael, having gone to a loan shark to raise the money, is held responsible for the debt and given one week to come up with the money. Michael asks his boss Marty Bach for a loan to cover the expenses; Marty insinuates that if Michael is successful in containing Arthur then he can secure the loan.

Karen Crowder, U-North's general counsel, discovers that Arthur had come into possession of a confidential U-North document, a 1991 memo detailing the company's decision to manufacture a weed killer it knew to be carcinogenic, a decision which led to 468 deaths and the class-action lawsuit. Karen brings this to the attention of U-North's CEO Don Jeffries, whose signature is on the 1991 memo. Don puts her in contact with two hitmen secretly on retainer. She contracts them to follow Arthur and bug his apartment and phone. Michael finds Arthur on a Manhattan street and confronts him about calls he made to Anna Kaiserson, one of the plaintiffs in the U-North suit. Knowing that his contacts with Anna were secret, Arthur realizes that his calls are being monitored. That night, Arthur calls his own voicemail at the firm and, knowing that his phone is bugged, brazenly reads from the 1991 memo, mockingly informing them that he will go public with the memo and ruin U-North. When the hitmen tell Karen that Arthur is building a case to expose U-North, she approves of their taking "drastic measures." Donning medical gloves so as to not leave behind forensic evidence, the men break into Arthur's apartment and electrocute him with a cattle prod before injecting him with a fatal overdose of an unknown drug, leaving his body in a way to make the murder appear as a suicide.

At first devastated on learning of Arthur's death, Michael becomes suspicious when he discovers that U-North was planning a settlement just a few days before, and that Arthur had booked a flight to New York for Anna. He finds Anna and learns that no one knew of her conversations with Arthur, not even her attorney, yet Michael's firm somehow knew of Arthur's conversations with the U-North plaintiffs. Michael breaks into Arthur's sealed apartment with the plan to reseal it with a police seal obtained from his brother Gene, a police officer. He finds a bottle of champagne and two glasses in the refrigerator and suspects Arthur arranged to have Anna come to his apartment. There is also a copy of Realm and Conquest, a fantasy novel which Michael's son Henry had recommended to both Michael and Arthur, with several pages evidently highlighted and annotated by Arthur. A receipt from a photocopy shop was being used as a bookmark.

The two hitmen, who have been trailing Michael, call the police when they see him enter the apartment. Michael is caught and arrested for trespassing, but Gene bails him out. Using the photocopy receipt, Michael discovers that Arthur had ordered 3,000 copies of the confidential U-North document. Michael takes one copy of the document with him. The hitmen also obtain a copy, which they provide to Karen. Michael is about to show Marty the document in his possession, but before he can do so, he is offered a renewed employment contract as well as the $80,000 he had requested to cover his debt. As a condition, Marty's associate, Barry Grissom, operating on the assumption that Michael may be shaking down the firm based upon what he has found out about U-North's activities, imposes a confidentiality agreement on Michael to prevent him from divulging any information that might damage U-North's case. This reveals to Michael that Marty and Barry already know about U-North's cover-up.

At this point the long flashback merges with the timeline of the beginning of the film.

One of the hit men rigs Michael's car with a bomb, but is forced to leave the job unfinished when Michael suddenly abandons his poker game after receiving a phone call summoning him to meet the hit-and-run client. He is followed by the hit men, who have trouble tracking him, but eventually get close enough to detonate the radio-controlled bomb. When the bomb explodes, Michael runs back to his burning car, throws some of his personal effects into it, and escapes into the woods. Everyone at the firm presumes that Michael died in the explosion.

Later, at a U-North board meeting at the New York Hilton Midtown hotel, Karen proposes that the board approve a new settlement in the class action lawsuit against the company. She leaves the room to let the board of directors deliberate. She is shocked when Michael confronts her in the foyer, since she believed him to be dead. He informs her that he has possession of the U-North memo, and knows about her role in Arthur's murder and the subsequent attempt on his own life. He goads Karen into offering him $10 million for his silence. Karen reluctantly agrees, whereupon Michael reveals that he is wearing a wire, with NYPD detectives listening on the other end. With her life and career destroyed, a distraught Karen sinks to her knees as the police arrive to arrest her and Don. Michael leaves the building; getting into a cab he tells the driver "Give me $50 worth. Just drive".

Cast
  • George Clooney as Michael Raymond Clayton. As the "fixer" for Kenner, Bach, and Ledeen, it is his job to clean up messes for the law firm. He refers to himself as a "janitor", and does not enjoy his job. Denzel Washington turned down the title role and later regretted it.[4][5]
  • Tom Wilkinson as Arthur Edens, senior litigation partner in the firm, good friend of Michael Clayton and Marty Bach, lead attorney for U-North in an expensive class-action law suit, whose erratic behavior threatens to derail the case after he goes off the medications he takes for bipolar disorder
  • Tilda Swinton as Karen Crowder, general counsel at U-North, a ruthless lawyer who is on the verge of a mental breakdown
  • Sydney Pollack as Martin "Marty" Bach, managing partner of Kenner, Bach, and Ledeen, Michael's boss
  • Michael O'Keefe as Barry Grissom, who works closely with Marty at the law firm, and imposes conditions on Michael for the $80,000 "bonus"
  • Sean Cullen as Gene Clayton, Michael's brother, a police detective
  • Ken Howard as Don Jeffries, U-North's CEO
  • Merritt Wever as Anna, one of the plaintiffs against U-North
  • Austin Williams as Henry Clayton, Michael's young son
  • Denis O'Hare as Mr. Greer, a man involved in a hit-and-run incident who Michael is called upon to advise
  • Julie White as Mrs. Greer, Mr. Greer's wife
  • Robert Prescott as Verne, a hit man
  • Terry Serpico as Iker, another hit man
  • Katherine Waterston, in her feature debut, as "Third Year", which likely refers to the number of years she has been an attorney at Kenner, Bach, and Ledeen. A "third year" staffer is considered to be a fairly junior attorney at a corporate law firm.

Release

Theatrical

The film premiered August 31, 2007 at the Venice Film Festival; 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 US on October 12, 2007. The film grossed $10.3 million on the opening week. It was re-released on January 25, 2008. The film has grossed $49 million at the North American domestic box office, and a total of $92.9 million worldwide.[2]

Home media

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc 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.

Reception

Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 91% based on 202 reviews, with an average rating of 7.63/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Michael Clayton is one of the most sharply scripted films of 2007, with an engrossing premise and faultless acting. Director Tony Gilroy succeeds not only in capturing the audience's attention, but holding it until the credits roll."[6] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 82 out of 100, based on 36 critics indicating "universal acclaim".[7] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "B" on an A+ to F scale.[8]

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 full four stars[9] and Richard Roeper named it the best film of the year.[10] 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".[11] Time magazine said that "Michael Clayton is not an exercise in high-tension energy; you'll never confuse its eponymous protagonist with Jason Bourne. But it does have enough of a melodramatic pulse to keep you engaged in its story and, better than that, it is full of plausible characters who are capable of surprising—and surpassing—your expectations".[11]

Top ten lists

The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2007.[12]

Accolades

Awards

Nominations

Soundtrack
Main article: Michael Clayton (soundtrack)

Original Motion Picture Soundtrack: Michael Clayton was composed by James Newton Howard and released on September 25, 2007 on the Varèse Sarabande label.[17] The soundtrack was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score.

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References
  1. "Michael Clayton (2007) - Financial Information". The Numbers.
  2. Michael Clayton at Box Office Mojo. Retrieved October 21, 2013.
  3. "Michael Clayton". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved March 24, 2016.
  4. Doty, Meriah (18 September 2012). "Denzel Washington regrets passing up 'Seven' and 'Michael Clayton'". Yahoo! Movies. Retrieved 13 May 2017.
  5. Davis, Edward (26 September 2012). "Denzel Washington Turned Down 'Seven' & 'Michael Clayton,' Javier Bardem Passed On 'Minority Report'". IndieWire. Retrieved 13 May 2017.
  6. "Michael Clayton". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved July 24, 2019.
  7. "Michael Clayton". Metacritic. Retrieved October 21, 2013.
  8. "Cinemascore". CinemaScore. Archived from the original on 2018-12-20.
  9. Ebert, Roger. "Michael Clayton Movie Review & Film Summary (2007) | Roger Ebert". www.rogerebert.com. Retrieved 2016-12-03.
  10. "Richard Roeper's Best of 2007". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved October 21, 2013.
  11. Schickel, Richard (December 9, 2007). "Top 10 Movies (Richard Schickel)". Time. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
  12. "Metacritic: 2007 Film Critic Top Ten Lists". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on February 23, 2008. Retrieved February 25, 2008.
  13. Roeper's review on YouTube
  14. Dargis's review
  15. "The Edgar Allan Poe Awards". Book Reporter. Archived from the original on January 2, 2010. Retrieved November 30, 2010.
  16. "Hollywood Foreign Press Association 2008 Golden Globe Awards for the Year Ended December 31, 2007". Golden Globes. December 13, 2007. Archived from the original on December 15, 2007. Retrieved December 17, 2007.
  17. "Allmusic: Michael Clayton (Original Score)". Macrovision Corporation. 2008. Retrieved February 24, 2008.
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