
Michael Clayton, a high-priced law firm's fixer, leaves a late night poker game, gets a call to drive to Westchester, and watches his car blow up as he's taking an impromptu dawn walk through a field. Flash back four days. He owes a loan shark to cover his brother's debts (Michael's own gambling habits have left him virtually broke). His law firm is negotiating a high-stakes merger, and his firm's six year defense of a conglomerate's pesticide use is at risk when one of the f... (Full plot summary below)
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Michael Clayton, a high-priced law firm's fixer, leaves a late night poker game, gets a call to drive to Westchester, and watches his car blow up as he's taking an impromptu dawn walk through a field. Flash back four days. He owes a loan shark to cover his brother's debts (Michael's own gambling habits have left him virtually broke). His law firm is negotiating a high-stakes merger, and his firm's six year defense of a conglomerate's pesticide use is at risk when one of the firm's top litigators goes off his meds and puts the case in jeopardy. While Michael is trying to fix things someone decides to kill him. Who? Meanwhile his son summarizes the plot of a dark fantasy novel.
Leave your thoughts about Michael Clayton.
| Minneapolis Star TribuneColin CovertA throwback to trim, intelligent moral thrillers like The Verdict and Absence of Malice. |
| The Scorecard ReviewJeff BayerA killer voice-over by Tom Wilkinson sets the tone for this dramatic thriller, and you're willing to go on the journey even if you don't understand it all the time. |
| The Film YapNick RogersGeorge Clooney wastes nothing in his best performance, and the film is as breathtakingly efficient. Specifics and surprises unfold with methodical care, and attentive adult audiences can savor one of the smartest, classiest legal thrillers ever made. |
| Quad City Times (Davenport, IA)Linda CookThis isn't a thrill a minute. But "Michael Clayton" is indeed an entertaining thriller, although it's a slow-paced one that's told mostly in flashback. |
| NewsBlazeKam WilliamsErin Brockovich (2000) meets A Civil Action (1998), but featuring a flawed hero with blood on his hands and an ace up his sleeve. |
| Hollywood.comKit BowenFilled with wonderfully conflicted characters, Michael Clayton is a masterful legal thriller that never misses a beat. A true diamond in the rough. |
| Arizona Daily StarPhil VillarrealWith Clooney in the driver's seat, the film tumbles forward in a snapping elastic band of tension and shuddering revelations. The movie starts off grippingly and only grows more intense and thrilling. |
| Killer Movie ReviewsAndrea Chasea thriller of the most sophisticated type, playing the macrocosm of Clayton's professional problems against the microcosm of the soul he thought he had conveniently compartmentalized |
| Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertI don't know what vast significance Michael Clayton has (it involves deadly pollution but isn't a message movie). But I know it is just about perfect as an exercise in the genre. |
| eFilmCritic.comPeter SobczynskiA taut, exciting and thoughtful legal thriller that is so smartly conceived and executed that to merely call it a "legal thriller" almost sounds demeaning. |