Another labor of love from Clooney

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on October 04, 2007 at 10:00 PM, updated October 05, 2007 at 10:52 PM
George Clooney ponders an ethical question as lawyer "Michael Clayton," a film he helped produce.
Michael Clayton (R) Warner Bros. (120 min.) Directed by Tony Gilroy. With George Clooney, Tilda Swinton. Opens Friday at theaters throughout New Jersey. THREE STARS

Michael Clayton is a fixer, a guy who knows the angles, a lawyer who knows which lines you can cross and which ones you can't. So when an attorney at his firm begins to screw up a case, begins to even give hints that he's gone over to the other side, Clayton has to put the screws to him -- gently.

"I'm not the enemy," he assures his colleague.

But the man remains unconvinced. "Then who are you?" he asks.

Michael Clayton the shyster doesn't have an answer for that, but "Michael Clayton" the movie is about how he finally dares to ask himself the question. Is he a good man? Is he even any kind of man at all, if he's always doing what's expedient or what's necessary, but never asking himself what's helpful or right?

That's a tall order of business, for a man or a movie, but those are the sort of questions that George Clooney is interested in (and the kind of stories that high-gloss baubles like "Ocean's 13" help finance). He stars in and helped produce this picture, and like all the ones he truly gets involved in -- "Good Night, and Good Luck," "Syriana," "The Good German" -- it's about issues of personal responsibility and moral duty.

That's because Clayton works for a giant New York law firm, a slow-moving colossus that -- after 15 years of litigation -- is finally guiding a corporate client toward a class-action settlement. Until a document comes to light that would win the case for the other side, if only the other side knew about it. And Clayton has to ask himself: Who is he, really? What kind of man, at this late date, does he really want to be?

Director Tony Gilroy is a screenwriter whose credits include the first two "Bourne" movies, and they're a bad influence here, making him resort to exaggerated thriller cliches. (It's not enough that the corporate client is a lethal polluter; they have to employ roving crews of assassins, too.) The movie would be stronger with fewer agents talking on headsets, and more details about what a fixer really does.

The movie also, unconsciously, has a kind of pushy masculinity about it that's vaguely unpleasant. Every character is a white, middle-aged, hard-drinking male; the women are all mere window-dressing or plot devices, sisters and secretaries, ex-wives and teenage litigants brought on for a bit of exposition. In fact, there's only one significant adult female in the entire film -- and she's the worst corporate villain of all.

The wonderful Tilda Swinton does everything she can to give this wicked witch some character. We see her carefully rehearsing her every public statement, stumbling over the words; we watch her carefully judging herself in her dressing room mirror, a pale and untidy bit of midriff pushing past the waistband of her skirt. We see the absolute terror of this in-over-her-head woman and, in a climactic scene, watch her nearly shake herself to pieces.

Yet because she's the only significant female character in the piece, her comeuppance has a nasty tinge of misogyny to it. She's not just a villain being vanquished; she's an uppity woman being put in her place.

Still, without soft-pedaling her crimes, Swinton succeeds in at least giving her a semblance of humanity, and Clooney -- looking tired and hung over -- gives us a sense of Clayton's own moral bankruptcy.

For 20 years he's been tidying up messy situations, cleaning up other people's dirt -- "the janitor," he calls himself. But how much mess can you mop up before you start absorbing it? How much dirt can you touch before you can no longer wash it off? Before you have to try to convince an old friend that you're not the enemy? And then try to convince yourself that you're telling the truth?

A whole movie, and a man's life, turn thrillingly on that question.

Ratings note: The film contains strong language, violence and substance abuse.
