by Karyn Beach

Any movie that can be described as a 'legal thriller' automatically gets my attention. Add to that, an actor like George Clooney and a really good trailer and I'm hooked. I wanted to absolutely love Michael Clayton. In the end, I liked it but I was a little disappointed all the same.

The title character, played by Clooney, is a 'fixer' at his law firm. He's the guy the rich and the powerful call in the middle of the night to clean up their messes. He often, and rightly, refers to himself as a janitor. He's really good at his job, almost too good. Unfortunately, he's not as good at cards (gambling addict) or picking investments - a restaurant he started with his drug addict brother has gone belly up and he's stuck with the bill. Clayton's firm, led by Marty Bach (Sydney Pollack) has been embroiled in a class action lawsuit for the past six years. They represent U North, an agro-chemical company accused of poisoning and killing a lot of farmers with some of its chemicals. The case's head litigator, Arthur Edens (Tom WIlkinson), goes off the deep end when he finds information that proves the company is guilty, and Clayton is called in to stop the hemoraging. He's dealing with a very worried client and its new CEO Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton) who is willing to do whatever it takes to secure her position and win this case.

Michael Clayton is a smart movie. It doesn't try too hard to be that way, it just is. It doesn't spell every little detail out for us, it doesn't have to. Writer/director, Tony Gilroy, assumes we have brains and we want to use them. Clayton is a man torn between doing what he knows how to do so well and doing what is right. He's a man at a crossroads looking at what he is and what he could have become. Clooney does an excellent job here of playing a man trying to navigate his way through an increasingly dangerous crisis while trying to hold everything together.

The supporting cast was excellent as well. Tom WIlkinson, as the manic depressive and brillant attorney, is perfectly unhinged one moment and perfectly lucid the next. Swinton is equally powerful as the new head of U North, who is struggling to adjust to her new role as CEO when this crisis erupts.

With solid performances and an equally solid script and direction, I really don't know why I didn't love this movie. I guess, I got caught up in all the accolades the movie received (it was playing a week in 'major' cities before it got down here to me in little old Charlotte). Wtih all the hyperbole and 'four-star' endorsements in the commercial, I think my expectations were too high. In the end, it's a good film, well-constructed and wonderfully acted but it wasn't the revelation that some of the critics hailed it to be.