Z/Web

This is stylistic and interesting, but way too convoluted. You feel manipulated and confused from the start as we watch some dramatic things happen and suddenly go to a flashback that takes up almost the rest of the film. It is kinda neat the way you see the events of the beginning with a different eye later in the film once you know what’s happening, and that perspective does add power to those events, but unfortunately for much too much of the film you are just bewildered with no idea what is going on or where the film is going. Once everything’s stripped away the plot’s really simple: a New York legal firm is defending a pesticide company against a lawsuit that’s been dragging on for over a dozen years when the lead lawyer gets a crisis of conscience after uncovering dramatic evidence of the company’s guilt. Michael Clayton, the firm’s “fixer,” is brought in to contain the situation, but then he has a crisis of conscience as well, and when he becomes a threat to the law firm, someone tries to kill him. It’s all very dramatic and well acted, and it fortunately falls just short of pretentious, but unfortunately not all that much really happens, and because of the way information is withheld from the viewer until the very end, it’s confusing. Still, it’s turns out to be a good film, just not great. You just have to watch it on faith that things will eventually make sense and then it’s pretty good.