Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is a contracted back-of-the-house "fixer" at Kenner, Bach & Ledeen, one of Manhattan’s largest corporate law firms.
Clayton is the guy sent out at midnight to the Westchester mansion of some rich bastard desperately looking for a way out of a hit-and-run car accident that left a pedestrian in an unknown state of physical harm.
A recent divorce and a huge debt from a personal investment deal gone awry has left Michael consumed with repairing his own unraveled life. But this ethically equivocal character is cut from hickory, not pine.
Michael is a doer, not a worrier.
"I’m not a miracle worker, I’m a janitor" is the line he uses to keep his self image in check.
But there’s also a bit of the dreamer in Michael Clayton; it’s a characteristic that saves his life during a harrowing scene that acts as a reference point for the story.
Damn skippy.
Rated R. 119 mins.
