I know. I know. There is something paradoxical about any lawyer finding his or her conscience. Most people figure lawyers don't have conciences to find. But that is the fictional gravaman of Michael Clayton, George Clooney's new movie offering. And pardon me, lawyer that I am myself, this comforts me.
The first ten minutes tell us the following: the senior partner has had a manic depressive episode during a deposition of a plaintiff in a big case that's been going on a very long time in which his firm is defending a VERY BIG firm, called U North, accused civilly of causing a whole bunch of people to get cancer. He tears off his clothes and rants until he is carried away to the local Minneapolis jail. A long time lawyer in the New York firm, but not a partner, is Michael Clayton. He is the "fixer", the guy the firm, the clients, all sorts of people call when they get into trouble and the legal system needs, well, a little sub rosa molding to order. Such a man is well paid, and well regarded in a dicey sort of way, but he can't be a named partner, too many questions. Michael, a divorced father and ne're do well gambler who is in debt up to his eyeballs because of a failed restaurant business he had with a more ne're do well brother, is called out of a seedy poker game to take care of a little problem. A Westchester, NY citizen and firm cash cow hit a pedestrian on the way home to his alcoholic wife and expects not only dispensation but a clean slate. He is quite annoyed at the person whom he left to die and at Clayton for not being the magician he was billed to be. Michael's also on tap to take care of the larger nasty problem of the wild eyed senior partner (masterfully played by Tom Wilkinson) whose breakdown has compromised the BIG case. Peeling away from the home of the self entitled Westchesterite, Michael drives as if he is sick of everything, but we don't yet know what everything is. He pulls into a not easily visible road and stops suddenly. There are three horses on a hill in the dawn light. He gets out of his car and hikes in the chill morning air to the top of the hill. Calmed, momentarily cleansed, he reaches out to touch one of them. His car explodes.
I'll let the movie tie it all together for you. But suffice it to say, some people, some apparently very ordinary people are not very nice in this film, and make murder about as clinical a thing as I have ever seen on film. Wilkinson (senior partner) is crazy, but he has discovered something BIG in this BIG case that he just can't accept, and Michael, well, he is almost too late in discovering what Wilkinson (senior partner) discovered. Got it?
But both men also discover they they still have souls. And it costs to restore the truth.
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