Tony Gilroy
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Connections, in both directions
Meanwhile Arthur is carrying on like Peter Finch's Howard Beale in "Network," and Michael is sinking inexorably into the sloughs of despondency.
As Arthur Edens, a law partner whose work on a huge class action suit threatens to unravel the case, the great Tom Wilkinson delivers spoken arias with soaring, manic conviction worthy of Peter Finch in "Network."
I guess you could describe it as a Manhattan "legal thriller" -- most of the main characters are corporate lawyers -- that strikes a delicate tonal balance between the cynical political paranoia of the "Bourne" movies, the satirical paranoia of "Network," the corporate paranoia of "The Insider," and the legalistic paranoia of "Erin Brockovich."
Michael Clayton is not unlike the great Paddy Chayefsky-penned films The Hospital and Network, as it’s absurd when you sit back and think about the plot, yet it works – making for a film that’s more accurate and real than most thrillers.
"Michael Clayton" - Tony Gilroy's solid if not quite thrilling legal drama - aims to do for law firms what "Network" did for TV stations.
Suddenly conscious of his role as corporate asshole, he bares soul and body in court and becomes Peter Finch in Network, only minus the satire; the situation points Clayton toward his own epiphany, while the company's nervously nefarious chief counsel (Tilda Swinton) takes the cleaning into her own hands with a pair of hired killers.
In the tradition of such classics as "All the President's Men," "Klute" and "Three Days of the Condor," it's a film that dares not to patronize or pander to its audience, but rather to assume viewers possess the intelligence to connect its twisty trail of dots.
“Miss Sloane” is at once unapologetically melodramatic and surprisingly wonky — similar to, but less elegant than, the legal thriller “Michael Clayton.”
It’s Michael Clayton meets The West Wing , with no kindly and wise elder statesmen to be found.
Directed by handsome drama maestro John Madden (“Shakespeare in Love,” “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”) and positioned as a cross between “Michael Clayton” and “All the President’s Men,” the movie features morally bankrupt D.C. power players and blackmail scenes set in shady parking garages, making inspired use of genre clichés even as it offers a relatively fresh look at one of the most manipulative forces on Capitol Hill today: the special-interest lobbyist.
She roars through this political drama, as glamorously cynical as his 2011 directorial effort The Ides of March, and plays a morally conflicted Washington lobbyist similar to the guilty corporate fixer he rode to an Oscar nomination in Michael Clayton.
The film, directed by John Madden – best known for “Shakespeare in Love” and “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” – moves in gyrations done before and more genuinely in “Michael Clayton” and “Thank You for Smoking,” but does bring a unique lens to the D.C. universe, especially the means of capturing votes and identifying target blocs.
"Scandal" meets "Michael Clayton," this wild thriller about the dark art of lobbying might be the political movie the world needs right now.
Three Days of the Condor (1975)
Directed by Sydney Pollack
influenced Michael Clayton (2007)
Plot Themes
But he otherwise gives the movie a frantic energy, a breathless pace, a dense atmosphere of corruption, plenty of snappy dialogue, and an ensemble of morally compromised supporting characters wonderfully played by Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton and Sydney Pollack (director of the iconic '70s paranoid thriller, "Three Days of the Condor.")
It's something of John Grisham meets "Three Days of the Condor," although, as the director points out in his commentary, the movie never goes near a courtroom.
In the tradition of such classics as "All the President's Men," "Klute" and "Three Days of the Condor," it's a film that dares not to patronize or pander to its audience, but rather to assume viewers possess the intelligence to connect its twisty trail of dots.
In fact, its proper place would seem to be with the paranoia thrillers of the 1970s, a sweaty sub-genre that houses such classics as All the President's Men, The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor.
It’s a character study in the tradition of, say, “Harry and Tonto” or “A Woman Under the Influence,” but it also wants to be a paranoid thriller along the lines of “The Parallax View” or “Three Days of the Condor.”
These movies stand as on par with Redford’s The Candidate, Three Days Of The Condor and All The President’s Men in their absolute belief that something is rotten in the state of the union.
The Verdict (1982)
Directed by Sidney Lumet
influenced Michael Clayton (2007)
Characters Themes Plot
Like the Paul Newman figure in The Verdict, Michael is working-class and has both lust and contempt for the legal establishment that will hire him as the help but not invite him to sit at the table.
Gilroy's crafty original script is a legal thriller in the vein of Sidney Lumet's "The Verdict" and Sydney Pollack's "Absence of Malice."
Like the movie it’s most akin to – Sidney Lumet’s masterful The Verdict – there’s a strange subjective synchronicity that occurs.
The bones of the story are recognizable from courtroom dramas like The Verdict or … And Justice for All: A burned-out attorney finds his conscience when he uncovers a case so rotten that he can't not fight the good fight.
Tony Gilroy, screenwriter of the "Bourne" adventures, makes his writing/directing debut with a throwback to trim, intelligent moral thrillers like "The Verdict" and "Absence of Malice."
The movie gives off something reminiscent of old caper romances like Charade, How to Steal a Million, A Fish Called Wanda, the Ocean’s movies, and the underrated Duplicity, in which Julia Roberts and Clive Owen keep their con going so long that what they’re left with is each other.
More recently, 2009's Duplicity, itself a terrific comedy-drama about corporate espionage starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, offered even more twists and as much excitement, though it remains criminally under seen.
It aspires to the likes of the grotesquely underrated Julia Roberts-Clive Owen-starring “Duplicity”: a con movie in which professional liars fall for each other and only wind up wondering if they really can love at all.
Smith and Robbie can’t hope to capture the warm antagonism of a couple like Clive Owen and Julia Roberts in the criminally underrated Duplicity, but Focus still fits in the pantheon of films featuring conning couples.
The first half grooves like a lounge and pops like a good bubble; the second half rolls patiently, lacking the consistent zip of something like Tony Gilroy's excellent take on potentially romantic deception, "Duplicity."
For every "Ocean's 11," there's an audience flop, such as "Duplicity" with Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, that gets one too many steps ahead of the audience, while relying on the stars.
He has alternated parts in projects like "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" "Intolerable Cruelty," and the three "Ocean's" movies with "The Perfect Storm," "Good Night, and Good Luck," "Syriana," "The Good German," and the 2007 film we're discussing here, "Michael Clayton," which may his best starring vehicle to date.
Clooney, eschewing the glib, glamorous persona of the "Ocean's" movies and other slick bonbons, is in baggy-eyed "Syriana" mode here, moving through the days-long 3 a.m. of the soul with none of the cocky affectations that he often relies on.
In that regard, Michael Clayton somewhat resembles Stephen Gaghan’s Syriana (2005), with its bleak portrait of an utterly hopeless situation, but this film never quite reaches that level.
Clooney je u ovom filmu bolji nego u nekim svojim ranijim i razvikanijim politički angažiranim filmovima ("Laku noć i sretno", "Syriana"), ali je još daleko od ostvarenja koje bi se uistinu moglo nazvati velikim.
But in “Syriana” and now in “Michael Clayton” he has done something more interesting: he’s playing clever guys who lack the killer instinct, who have some strain of personal honor that holds them back from simply winning.
Jay Kelly’s final shot stays tight on Clooney – I’ll interpret that as an on-the-nose Michael Clayton reference – and he delivers a blow that reflects the material in that it’s not a knockout, but stings nevertheless.
…a vibe he cultivated persuasively in movies like Michael Clayton, Up in the Air, and The Descendants…
Jay’s highlights reel includes clips from “Three Kings,” “Ocean’s Eleven,” “Syriana,” “Michael Clayton,” “Up in the Air,” and other Clooney hits, plus a generous excerpt of Clooney’s single scene in Terrence Malick’s “The Thin Red Line.”
…what he sees is Clooney’s highlights reel: moments from The Thin Red Line; Goodnight, and Good Luck; Michael Clayton; and more…
The clips during the Jay Kelly tribute include scenes from Combat Academy, Sunset Beat, ER, From Dusk Till Dawn, The Peacemaker, The Thin Red Line, Out of Sight, Three Kings, Intolerable Cruelty, Ocean’s Twelve, Syriana, The Good German, Michael Clayton, Leatherheads, Burn After Reading, Up in the Air, The American, and The Midnight Sky.
In 2007, there was another film featuring George Clooney at the Venice Film Festival – Tony Gilroy’s now largely forgotten directorial debut, Michael Clayton (we see snippets from it during the above-mentioned montage of Clooney’s roles). In it, the peak of Clooney’s character’s existential crisis is represented by a walk among the trees and encountering white horses. Almost 20 years later, Baumbach capitalizes on that depiction: the lowest point of Jay’s emotional journey is him walking through Italian woods – no horses, but he does wear a white suit and a tragic facial expression.
Michael Clayton is a different breed of cocktease -- the "adult" stuff promised is grave analysis of personal crisis in a corrupted world, what you get is a glum remake of Absence of Malice, with Sydney Pollack himself on hand for good luck.
Gilroy's crafty original script is a legal thriller in the vein of Sidney Lumet's "The Verdict" and Sydney Pollack's "Absence of Malice."
Tony Gilroy, screenwriter of the "Bourne" adventures, makes his writing/directing debut with a throwback to trim, intelligent moral thrillers like "The Verdict" and "Absence of Malice."
In the tradition of such classics as "All the President's Men," "Klute" and "Three Days of the Condor," it's a film that dares not to patronize or pander to its audience, but rather to assume viewers possess the intelligence to connect its twisty trail of dots.
In fact, its proper place would seem to be with the paranoia thrillers of the 1970s, a sweaty sub-genre that houses such classics as All the President's Men, The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor.
These movies stand as on par with Redford’s The Candidate, Three Days Of The Condor and All The President’s Men in their absolute belief that something is rotten in the state of the union.
The movie was written and directed by Tony Gilroy , son of the playwright Frank D. Gilroy (" The Subject Was Roses ").
These movies stand as on par with Redford’s The Candidate, Three Days Of The Condor and All The President’s Men in their absolute belief that something is rotten in the state of the union.
Clooney’s performance recalls his work in Soderbergh’s “Out of Sight,” while the movie’s pacing reminded me of Minghella’s “The Talented Mr. Ripley.”
In his day, we feel, Clayton was probably akin to the Harvey Keitel character in "Pulp Fiction".
Much in the same way “Pulp Fiction” starts with the end and circles back once the middle has been teemed in, Clooney in his inextricable role as a “fixer” of all things crooked plunges you into the wildly provocative world of corporate America.
He’s the white-shoe version of the Harvey Keitel character in “Pulp Fiction.”
Although "Michael Clayton" is driven by Gilroy's brilliant writing, it's clearly Clooney's movie as the title character whose specialized profession is similar to that of Harvey Keitel's Mr. Wolf in "Pulp Fiction," cleaning up the messes that can cost the New York law firm that employs him billions of dollars or merely make their clients look bad.
It?s been pointed out that Clayton is basically the legal equivalent of Harvey Keitel?s ?The Wolf? in Pulp Fiction.
He's Jean Reno in La Femme Nikita; he's Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction.
"Michael Clayton" is styled as a throwback to such socially conscious 1970s morality plays as "The China Syndrome" and "The Parallax View."
The list of Academy Award-nominated names set a cultivated tone for a scathing corporate thriller that emanates from the same narrative petri dish that spawned films like "The Parallax View" and "The China Syndrome."
In fact, its proper place would seem to be with the paranoia thrillers of the 1970s, a sweaty sub-genre that houses such classics as All the President's Men, The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor.
Tony Gilroy’s magisterially paced first feature could have been a conventional redemption story about the jobbing and none-too-scrupulous hack finding his soul, but masterly storytelling and an uncharacteristically un-preening performance from George Clooney keep you on tenterhooks, a throwback to the great age of paranoia-inducing thrillers (The Parallax View, Winter Kills).
It’s a character study in the tradition of, say, “Harry and Tonto” or “A Woman Under the Influence,” but it also wants to be a paranoid thriller along the lines of “The Parallax View” or “Three Days of the Condor.”
He's allowed to be the combination of his most effective characters -- the sad ones, like Kelvin from Solaris , combined with a smooth, fast talker like Danny Ocean.
Swinton is the supremely intelligent British actress whose most vivid performance was in Sally Potter’s masterpiece “Orlando.”
(The scene plays very much like—and even recalls—the one in Citizen Kane where Orson Welles suddenly rattles off a list of his assets to someone pointing out his irresponsible attitude toward his own interests.)
The Tourist (2010)
Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
influenced by Duplicity (2009)
Plot Themes
Unlike 2008's "Duplicity," this isn't a movie built on cleverness.
"Duplicity," some of you may recall, was a rather diabolically clever and highly complex romantic thriller starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen that rather famously flopped at the box office in 2009.
Tony Gilroy’s “Duplicity,’’ with Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, managed to pull off a similar version of this with great confidence and a lighter touch.
American audiences, I suspect, may have trouble warming to the film, since they tend to resist movies with any mentions of INTERPOL (why is that?), just as they resist twisty affairs with a predominantly facetious tone (such as "Duplicity," the one with Clive Owen and Julia Roberts ).
Most other actresses would have played Karen as a glacially formidable "bitch," akin to the Gina Gershon role in The Insider or the Sigourney Weaver part in Working Girl (minus, obviously, the farcical accents).