"Michael Clayton" is an extremely slow movie that is well worth seeing. So please resist the urge to turn off the movie...I felt a bit like doing this early on in the story.

Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is a fixer...a lawyer whose job it is to make clients' problems disappear. So, it's obvious early on that he is NOT a nice guy...not the sort of person you'd expect to be a hero. Add to that his huge gambling debts and you've got a really screwed up man. When he becomes involved in a case where his law firm is representing a chemical company in a class action lawsuit, however, his malleable morals are challenged. Is there something he won't hide?

This is a good movie that was nominated for several Oscars and one one for Tilda Swinton for Best Supporting Actress. Well, while the film is good, I can only assume it was a slow year. Yes...it's good. But a Best Picture nominee? And Swinton's performance, though good, was relatively small for the Best Supporting Actress statuette. Still, it is good....just don't expect it's great...which all the nominations would seem to imply.

By the way, one of the little things about the film I loved was the scene where Clayton needed to kick in a door. Unlike most TV shows and movies, it took a LOT of repeated effort to kick the door off the frame...an unusually realistic scene indeed.

Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is a fixer for a big law firm. His own personal life is a mess. Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson) is one of the firm's top lawyer working six years straight on a defense for a damaging pesticide. He breaks down and goes off in a deposition. Clayton is sent in to clean up the mess. Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton) is newly promoted in U/North which makes the pesticide. She is surprised that a low ranking lawyer has been sent to fix the mess.

There is a lot of juicy dense dialog for these great actors to chew on. The atmosphere just crackles with energy. George Clooney is dead on as the morally questionable lead. Tom Wilkinson is perfect as the mentally disturbed lawyer who finally cracks under the weight of the damage. Clooney's scene with his boss Sydney Pollack is electric. Tilda Swinton is convincing as a new executive over her head. This is an actors' picture, and they all did great work here.

This film marks an incredible directorial debut for Tony Gilroy. He was an accomplished screenwriter - and his script for MC is immaculate - but his direction was inspired with confidence and craftsmanship. Immaculate performances across the board - especially from Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson. Masterful storytelling and nearly perfect execution. The look and feel of the world was perfectly calibrated. It's one of the those films that gets even stronger with age. There's so much happening in his film, to re-watch is overcome with revelations. I love this film so much. I really wish they made films this smart and well-crafted more often these days. It's just not the kind of film that movie studios care to make anymore. Sadly.