Michael Clayton

Here is the first directing effort by Tony Gilroy, who wrote the very smart scripts for all three Bourne movies, and this one is super-sharp, too. Aside from one moment when a man gets out of a car at a moment that turns out to have been a very lucky one for him, without any reasonable motivation that I can see, it all hangs together. How nice to see a movie with a mind now and then. I thought it should have been a bigger hit than it was, and all I can figure out they did wrong was the title, and the advertising … which are pretty big things, come to think of it. I mean, take a look at the poster. Have you ever seen anything so uninteresting? As for the title, I don’t have a better one to suggest, and it is certainly possible to have a big hit with a movie named after the main character (Jerry McGuire), this one doesn’t resonate with me, and is actually about issues much broader than just one man. But forget all that, go see this. George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, and even more so, Tilda Swinton, are outstanding, as is every member of the supporting cast, so critical to the success of a realistic movie.