michael clayton

The quest for Oscar movies continues. Last night it was George Clooney's latest effort, Michael Clayton. Now I liked this movie quite a bit but later in this post I'm going to get into a tirade about what I didn't like about this movie. Before I get there, let's at least cover the things I did like about this movie.
First, the casting. Tilda Swinton is so good and most people wouldn't know who you're talking about if you dropped her name. Go back and watch her movies and she'll knock even the Oscar darling Cate Blanchett right off her throne of Catey excellence. I even went to see that awful movie The Beach just cuz she was in it. Go back and rent Orlando and you'll see acting like you've never seen before by anyone. Better yet, read the book by Virginia Woolfe and then watch the movie. So good. Good enough to win her Best Supporting Actress category? I would like her too but Cate Blanchett will most likely win it cuz she's not going to win in Best Actress. Just my opinion. Tom Wilkinson also excellent and this is one of his best roles. Not as good as he was in In the Bedroom though, but excellent nonetheless and completely deserving of his Best Supporting Actor nomination. George Clooney was good. Not all good enough to win for Best Actor against Daniel Day Lewis. Not by a longshot. But he was perfectly fine. Generally I don't belong to the "George Clooney Can Do No Wrong" club. He's pretty handsome, I'll give him that but otherwise I don't buy that he's this Hollywood legend in the making. But he was good in this for sure, it just didn't hit me as the performance of the year or anything. And Sydney Pollack? He's just good all the time really. He's in everything, he directs everything, he produces everything....he's a given great factor in a project.
Other good points, the writing. It was written in a way that was intricate enough not to be a movie for stupid people (ie: explaning every last detail) but not so confusing you left the theatre saying "now how did he know to do that?" It moved fairly quickly without really lagging, although with a running time clocking in at over 2 hours I'd by lying if I said I wasn't wanting it to hurry up and end. It was thrilling and interesting with only a teeny bit of predictability.
Now, my problems with the movie which almost don't have anything to do with the movie itself so much as the team behind it. Michael Clayton was almost the all-male cast version of Erin Brokovitch. The little guy going up against the big bad global conglomerate scenario yet again. This time though instead of 3 kids and big boobs, the main character had 5 o'clock shadow and a mob debt. Take away the biker boyfriend and the sad faces of cancer patients and throw in a car bomb and a couple of assassins and you've got Michael Clayton. Maybe movies named after a person have to be the same? Maybe that's a rule I wasn't aware of? Hmmm. But as I said, the little guy going up against the big guy? Still interesting and there's a reason why people keep making these kinds of stories -- cuz people like to see that. I like to see that.
Now on to my bigger problem and that's Steven Soderbergh. There was a point when I considered boycotting all his films mainly because I thought he really just wasn't that good a director. The reason? He stopped actually making unique movies! In 2002, his list of movies consisted mostly of biographies and re-makes and a couple of real stinkers. He hadn't really made a good movie since Sex, Lies and Videotape. Everyone is entitled to do re-makes but that can't be consistently what you do -- it's a cop-out. Oh and guess what his next crop of films are? Biographies!! In general, I think he gets way more credit than he deserves and hoping nobody notices and the seemingly never-ending collaborations of him and George Clooney just irritates me even more. Imagine if George teamed up with someone who's actually great? The results could be outstanding! Attention George -- Steven Soderbergh is stifling your creativity!! You are twice the director he is and you've only directed a couple of films!

So yes, I have a bias going into any film that Steven Soderbergh has anything to do with so this movie was facing an uphill battle to begin with. That being said, it was pretty damn good but I could have done without the Erin Brokovitchy-ness of it all.