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Combine the talents of George Clooney as the lead, writer of the Bourne movies Tony Gilroy in his first directorial stint, Steven Soderbergh and Anthony Minghella on executive producing duties, a solid cast including Brit Tom Wilkinson (Batman Begins, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), and what do you get? A steaming pile of cinematic faeces, that's what. Michael Clayton is inexcusably, butt-numbingly boring. It's all something to do with a class-action lawsuit involving a chemicals firm, but the plot is excruciatingly impenetrable; at any given time it's hard to know what is actually going on. It starts well enough, with a mildly interesting set-up, but once George Clooney narrowly escapes a car bombing (while randomly standing with some horses in a field) the film rewinds four days to show how he came to be here. The jump back in time completely stalls the momentum of the film and the car bombing actually has very little relevance to the events of the plot.
There's quite a lot going on in Michael Clayton, but that is ultimately a hindrance. Although it is an original screenplay (by Gilroy), it has the feel of a novel adaptation in which too many of the subplots have been retained, resulting in none of them receiving the attention that they need to make them compelling. It's also the main reason that it's so difficult to follow. A worse problem is that it's just impossible to care. Clooney is solid enough as usual but his character is utterly bland, and while Wilkinson manages to draw some life out of the script he still just seems a minor cog in an over-complicated machine. A murder which is one of the main events of the film should have been a hugely suspenseful set-piece but fails to get the pulse racing even slightly. Indeed, for what is presumably meant to be a thriller there are no thrills on offer whatsoever.
Gilroy displays some technical skill behind the camera. He clearly favours long takes, which are sometimes well executed, but at other times they're simply distracting. Surprisingly, it's his script that seems really at fault. There's just nothing to grab onto; no hook to draw in the viewer and make the film remotely engrossing. It's a mystery as to why he felt it was a film worth making. It's even more of a mystery that it has been receiving such generally favourable reviews. Well, it hasn't got one from Filmverdict.
The summary
Unless you suffer from sleep deprivation, Michael Clayton is one to avoid at all costs. Shockingly poor.
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