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Article: The fixer: Tony Gilroy's 'Michael Clayton'.(Screen)(Movie review)
- Article from:
- Commonweal
- Article date:
- November 9, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Commonweal Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Michael Clayton begins with its eponymous hero (played by George Clooney) summoned from a midnight card game by a colleague in Clayton's law firm. A millionaire client has fled the scene of a hit-and-run, and the lawyer wants Michael to hasten to the client's home and begin a mop-up operation. Though Michael has practiced law, his real forte is dealing with legal messes before they need to go to court. This is why he calls himself a "janitor," an epithet coated with self-contempt.
As Clayton drives out of New York City to the client's country house, cine-matographer Robert Elswit makes both the city night and the country night glam-orously menacing; blues and ...