michael clayton

Director: tony gilroy

Actor: george clooney,tilda swinton,tom wilkinson,michael o'keefe

Data Published: Fri Sep 28 2007

Genres: Crime,Drama,Mystery,Thriller

Key Words: character name as title,speech rehearsal,scene of the crime,law,fixer

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0465538/

WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Clayton_(film)

Description: Michael Clayton is a movie starring George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, and Tom Wilkinson. A law firm brings in its "fixer" to remedy the situation after a lawyer has a breakdown while representing a chemical company that he knows is...

Plot: Michael Clayton is a "fixer" for a prestigious New York City law firm, using his connections and knowledge of legal loopholes for clients' benefit. Although he is paid well enough, he is divorced, addicted to gambling, and faced with a large debt when his restaurant fails. After leaving a clandestine poker game to deal with Greer, a client involved in a hit-and-run incident, Michael drives back, stopping at a field, where some horses are standing on a hill. When he climbs the hill to gaze at them, his car explodes and burns. The narrative moves back to four days earlier. Michael is $75,000 in debt from a restaurant investment he entered with his brother Timmy, which collapsed when Timmy used the restaurant's funds to fuel his drug habits. Michael, having gone to a loan shark to raise the money, refuses to give up on his brother and is held responsible for the debt and given one week to come up with the money. Meanwhile, one of the firm's leading attorneys, Arthur Edens, has a manic episode in the middle of a deposition in Milwaukee involving a multibillion-dollar, six-year-long class action lawsuit against client U-North, an agricultural products conglomerate. Michael arrives in Milwaukee and bails Arthur out of jail after finding out he is no longer taking his medication, but Arthur escapes from their hotel room in the middle of the night. Karen Crowder, U-North's general counsel, discovers that Arthur had come into possession of a confidential U-North document detailing the company's decision to manufacture a weed killer it knew to be carcinogenic. Karen brings this to the attention of U-North's CEO Don Jeffries, who puts her in contact with two hit men secretly on retainer. She contracts them to follow Arthur and bug his apartment and phone. When they report that Arthur is building a case to expose his own client, Karen approves of their taking drastic measures. The men murder Arthur in such a way as to make it look like an accidental drug overdose or suicide. Michael, saddened by Arthur's death, becomes suspicious upon learning that U-North was planning a settlement just a few days before, and that Arthur had booked a flight to New York for one of the plaintiffs, named Anna. She tells him that no one knew of her conversations with Arthur, not even her attorney, yet Michael's firm somehow knew of Arthur's conversations with the U-North plaintiffs. With the help of his other brother Gene, a police detective, Michael gets access to Arthur's sealed apartment and, finding a bottle of champagne and two glasses in the refrigerator, suspects Arthur arranged to meet Anna. There is also a copy of Realm and Conquest, a fantasy novel which Michael's son Henry had recommended to both Michael and Arthur, with several pages evidently highlighted and annotated by Arthur, among which is a receipt from a photocopy shop being used as a bookmark. Michael is caught in the apartment and arrested for trespassing, but Gene bails him out. Using the receipt, Michael discovers that Arthur had ordered 3,000 copies of the confidential U-North document. Michael takes one copy of the document with him. The hit men, who are now following him, also obtain a copy, which they provide to Karen. Michael is about to show his boss, Marty Bach, the document in his possession. Before he can do so, he is offered a renewed employment contract as well as the $80,000 he had requested to cover his debt. As a condition, Marty's associate, Barry Grissom, operating on the assumption that Michael may be shaking down the firm based upon what he has found out about U-North's activities, imposes a confidentiality agreement on Michael to prevent him from divulging any information that might damage U-North's case. This reveals to Michael that Marty and Barry already know about U-North's cover-up. One of the hit men rigs Michael's car with a bomb, but is forced to leave the job unfinished when Michael suddenly abandons his high-stakes poker game after receiving a phone call summoning him to meet the hit-and-run client in a remote part of Westchester County. He is followed by the hit men, who have trouble tracking him, but eventually get close enough to detonate the radio-controlled bomb. However, Michael had already left the car to approach three horses standing motionless on a hilltop. The tableau resembles an illustration in the book he had found in Arthur's apartment. When the bomb explodes, the horses bolt. Michael runs to the burning car, throws some of his personal effects into it, and escapes into the woods. Later, at a U-North board meeting at the New York Hilton Midtown hotel, Karen proposes that the board approve a new settlement in the class action lawsuit against the company. She leaves the room to let the board of directors deliberate. She is shocked when Michael confronts her in the foyer, since she believed him to be dead. He informs her that he has possession of the U-North memo, and knows about her role in Arthur's murder and the subsequent attempt on his own life. He goads Karen into offering him $10 million for his silence. Karen reluctantly agrees, whereupon Michael reveals that she is about to get busted. Angered with Michael's presence, Jeffries calls out for security guards, but police arrive and arrest him and Karen instead. Michael hands the cellphone to Gene, then leaves the building, and hails a cab. He tells the driver, "Gimme 50 dollars' worth, just drive", as the film ends.