rone | michael clayton

Michael Clayton was really good. George Clooney does a great job at playing a man who gets more and more frazzled as events continually refuse to go his way, and Tom Wilkinson (a criminally underrated actor) channels Peter Finch as Howard Beale. Sydney Pollack more or less reprises his role from Eyes Wide Shut, Tilda Swinton is a stressed-out liar, and the kid who plays Clayton's son performs admirably and is far from "obnoxiously precocious", as the pinhead with the featured review on IMDb would have you think (Clayton's brother was no "noble cop", either, or he wouldn't've "helped" his lawyer brother the way he did). In the end, where Clayton walks away from Crowder after the climactic scene, you see a man with an unbelieving elation that's overcome with adrenalin; Clooney nails it.

I wanted to see it again after we were done, which makes it the third movie, after Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Shakespeare in Love. And, hey, who's the common factor? Tom Wilkinson!