Happy New Year ppl! Hope 2009 was awesome and 2010 will be legend-aaary, hahaha (You guys get the joke if you watch How I Met Your Mother). Yah, I promised it would be older films but this one definitely caught my attention when I rewatched it haha. I usually rewatch the films if time permits before I blog about them here.=P
The film proceeds in a non-linear fashion, with Michael (George Clooney) having just left a high-stakes poker game and being called in to "fix" a problem for one of his firm's long-time clients. From there he drove back towards New York at dawn, and he stops along the way having spotted three horses just standing there peacefully up by a hill. He walks towards them, his gaze transfixed on them, which leaves the audiences wondering what he was thinking, what was the significance of the three horses (I couldn't figure that out). It gave a very dark and mysterious feeling, teasing my curiosity. Just when everything seemed to be heading nowhere, his car blows up, and the flashback begins from four days ago.
In what I thought were sterling performance put up by George Clooney and Tom Wilkinson, the film revolves around a $3b class-action lawsuit Michael's law firm is handling for their client, U-North, that was sued for manufacturing and using pesticides that had a significant impact on human health. Michael, who has a job known as the "fixer" in the company, gets called in to fix the mess that his good friend and a partner of the firm, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), created when he's determined not to work in favour of U-North anymore.
Tom Wilkinson's awesome performance was best depicted at the point when Michael finds Arthur at a backstreet. Arthur, who was manic depressive and behind on his medication, showed his brilliance as a litigator when his conversation with Michael made everyone knew he still wasn't someone you'd wanna go to court against, a moment of genius shown in a hazy mix of craziness he's been portraying most of the time.
The story is about the redemption of the melancholic life of Michael Clayton, who besides being well-known to be really good at what he does, does not have any other achievements in life that he can be proud of. He's a divorced dad with a son, and is closing down a restaurant, an unwise joint-venture with a druggy brother which leaves him flirting with bankruptcy. His misery was well acknowledged when they were alone in the car and he tells his son, "You're not gonna be one of this people, that goes through life wondering why shit keeps falling out of the sky around you."
A good, serious, down-to-earth kind of show that shows you how life really is. A must-watch!
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