Michael Clayton

Michael Clayton proceeds in a mostly linear fashion, but it begins at one point, folds back on itself five days earlier, and works its way back to that initial moment. It is in that retelling of the initial scenes, oddly, that the film earns its thriller credentials: by that point, the audience knows whether a feared moment will happen or not, and yet then my blood began pumping. In the hour and a half leading up to it, I would not call it a thriller exactly, but it is an equally riveting corporate drama of shifting allegiances, machinations, and flawed characters caught in the crossfire. It is the most flawed among them that pose the greatest threat: Tilda Swinton’s warbling, waffling, neurotic corporate attorney holds a bomb in her shaking hands; Tom Wilkinson’s possibly deranged top litigator prone to outbursts of mad-lib Shakespeare monologues has all the information under lock and key; George Clooney’s firm “fixer” is torn between debts to family, career and risky gambles, up to this point willing to sell out to the highest bidder. All three actors deserve awards attention, and their characters are amazingly well-drawn. The narrative unfolds in such a precise, perfect way, suffused with the best dialogue I’ve heard out of a Hollywood thriller in… well, maybe ever. This is stellar. Top-5 film now and likely still in the 10 by the time the book is closed on 2007.