The George Clooney featured in Tony Gilroy’s “Michael Clayton” is a George Clooney that we’ve never seen before. The man known as Michael Clayton is a man portrayed by Clooney as a worn, exhausted, and utterly embittered shell of a man who has been granted excruciating burden after burden thanks to his job as a fixer. This is a man who has secrets, and demons, and is given everyone else's secrets and demons all for the sake of the mighty dollar. This Clooney looks worn and restless, and Clayton is a man who has reached an age where he’s just tired of burdens and wants out of his profession of scheming, and backstabbing. But the problem is, he has no way out. He’s broke, he’s penniless, he has debts, and he belongs to a corporation unwilling to let him go because of his propensity for holding onto secrets that can destroy others lives. Particularly the rich and elite, who commit themselves to vicious crimes, and Clayton abides his profession and gets them out of jams, while keeping the more important details to a hush. I won’t insist that Gilroy’s corporate thriller is anything I’ve ever seen before, because frankly if you’ve ever seen “The Verdict,” or “The Constant Gardener” then you’ll instantly recognize what “Michael Clayton” is aiming for, but surely enough George Clooney pulls in such a stellar performance that it seems almost criminal not to include this for Best Picture contention.

Arthur is also symbolic of the future for Clayton should he continue to pursue his line of work. Arthur is a more seasoned veteran in Clayton’s life who is filled with such self-loathing at the amoral life he’s led as a man of the same profession as Clayton, that he’s never above self-humiliation, and this troubles the burdened Clayton as he gradually watches the hinges to his mentor come off, and has a realization of his own that perhaps he’s headed down the same road. These burdens also help him to forget everything important in his life, but mostly, Clayton is a self-described janitor who comes in to clean up a messy situation and instead finds that he is apart of something humongous and potentially deadly. Gilroy’s mystery is a verbose and often jarring thriller that borders around the possible amoral action of Clayton, thus his frame as a flawed hero can often flip to an instant villain without a soul, should the story decide to offer up enough temptation to the character.

Clooney’s performance is utterly fantastic and a bonafide banner work for the actor who consistently impresses with a man who superficially leads a privileged life, but bears nothing but the wounds and turmoil of other amoral people. His battle to prevent being one by attempting to atone with this massive conspiracy makes Gilroy’s drama a constantly unpredictable one, and he keeps us in suspense constantly by introducing us to this character and then rewinding to where it all started to fill in the gaps. This is a wonderful production all around aided by strong supporting performances by Sidney Pollack, Tilda Swinton, and Wilkinson who is at his top as a man who thinks he may or may not hold the key to a cover up that he thinks should be unfolded for the sake of not only the public health, but his own soul. “Michael Clayton” ends up a note of bittersweet uncertainty, and the hint that there is much more story to go, but one thing we can be sure of is that we have no idea what is going to happen next.

Very much unlike the previous Clooney installments, “Michael Clayton” is a complicated, and briskly paced thriller with fantastic performances, ace direction, and a series of nuances that grant us a story about lost souls in the world of big business and the difficulty of reclaiming it.

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