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'Michael Clayton'

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BY JAN STUART | jan.stuart@newsday.com

October 5, 2007

George Clooney makes money the old-fashioned way: We earn it.

The thinking-person's movie stud, Clooney obliges his audience to work overtime for its popcorn thrills. He revels in convoluted global intrigue ("Syriana") that requires the acumen of a political analyst to sort out, philosophical sci-fi ("Solaris") that demands the watchfulness of a lighthouse keeper, and stylistically regimented period thrillers ("The Good German," "Good Night, and Good Luck") that foist us into a murky, black-and-white looking glass. Even the "Oceans" movies, for all their cheeky irrelevance, won't allow us to fall asleep at the wheel.

Don't drink too much coffee before "Michael Clayton" or you'll stagger out as fried as Clooney appears in its lingering final shot. This is a tricky, super-caffeinated corporate thriller that winds us up like a toy mouse from the word go and sends us skittering about, scanning for the maze's exit and laboring to figure out who's zooming who.

Existential malaise is very difficult to put across on screen, but Clooney embodies it with quietly commanding sobriety as Clayton, an attorney for a high-profile Manhattan law firm who is called in to do the drudge work, cleaning up embarrassing messes for clients before they go to court. Being the company "fixer" (or "janitor," in Clay- ton's self-deprecating terms) gets you points with the company boss (Sydney Pollack), but it will never get you to heaven; at 45, Clayton has to face the depressing reality that no one gets just what it is that he does and that he will never be elevated to a partnership.

Clayton's midlife crisis kicks into high gear when one of the firm's star litigators, Arthur Eden (Tom Wilkinson), suffers a meltdown in the midst of defending an agri-chemical company. Eden has stumbled across a memo implicating the client in far-reaching crimes; he responds with a colorful assortment of antisocial behaviors, which includes stripping naked at a strategic powwow with the client's top dogs.

One of those honchos, an ambitious corporate climber named Karen Crowder (the fearless Tilda Swinton, in swaggeringly fine form) becomes Clayton's primary adversary as he launches into damage control mode. The only person who seems to have any power over the raving Eden, however, is Clayton's precocious son, who simultaneously subdues and inflames the litigator with a book on the conquest of Rome.

John Grisham, this is not. The writing exhibits the opacity and icy erudition of a play out of London's Royal Court; until I skimmed the press notes, I would have sworn the writer was British. As it happens, "Michael Clayton" was crafted by the upstate New York-bred Tony Gilroy, who once wrote a beautifully passionate script for "Dolores Claiborne," but whose primary claim to fame are his restless, hyper-meticulous scenarios for the "Bourne" movies.

Making his directorial debut, Gilroy storms through at full tilt. He spends the first half of "Michael Clayton" alienating us with too much half-information and in-your-ear verbal assaults (such as the one by a flipped-out Eden that launches the film), then spends the second half reeling us back in with a bit of the old cloak-and-dagger.

It's invigorating and impressive on a formal level, but ultimately wearying. Midway through, one wants to hand all the characters a Valium and tell them to take the rest of the day off. You have to admire Clooney, though. Unlike his character, he has little reason to question the career choices he's made. Making an audience work is a good thing, even when, as happens with "Michael Clayton," we are undercompensated for our efforts.

MICHAEL CLAYTON (R). George Clooney creates a smoldering portrait of midlife regret as a law-firm fixer who has had his fill of cleaning up company messes. The first half of Tony Gilroy's brainy corporate thriller is wired and dissonant, but it eventually settles in and delivers - if you're still with it. With Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollack. 1:59 (language including some sexual dialogue). At Regal Union Square, AMC Loews Lincoln Square, Manhattan.