According to Colwell

Michael Clayton is one of that rare breed of movies that is not easily classified into genre and not easily summarized in a thirty-second preview. Part of the fun of the movie is the gradual unfolding of the plot and, in fact, the gradual realization of what the story of the movie really is. George Clooney plays the title character, a self-styled “janitor” at a high-powered New York law firm. A former litigator, Clayton has found his niche as a fix-it man, the guy you call in the middle of the night when a wealthy client of the firm has committed a hit-and-run, or, at the heart of this movie, the guy you send to bring your top litigator back under control after he goes brilliantly and publicly berserk. But though Clayton excels at making problems for his firm disappear, he has a number of problems looming in his personal life that hang over him like a cloud. Clooney gives a convincing performance, his face showing the cumulative weight of the problems of others he must routinely deal with. Tom Wilkinson is brilliant as the top litigator for Clooney’s firm who is representing UNorth, a multinational agricultural conglomerate that is being sued (think Erin Brockovitch). Tilda Swinton is chilling as the ambitious chief counsel for UNorth who seems to live her life on a knife edge between the corporate stratosphere and complete catastrophe. Tony Gilroy (the “Bourne” movies) wrote and directed this movie with a somber pallet of gray winter city colors, making the atmosphere as oppressive as the corporate world. It’s a tense, fascinating, and very well-acted movie where almost all the characters are under extreme duress of one form or another. If it’s about any one thing, it is about how these characters respond to pressures they are under.

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