MICHAEL CLAYTON

Director: Tony Gilroy (Directorial Debut, screenwriter for Bourne films, and ahem, Armageddon)
Starring: TV's Dr. Ross, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson, Sydney Pollack

With little time for reviewing, or even movie-watching lately, I'll try and write a few words about a film I saw weeks ago. This is assuming I can even remember the plot after this much time. Luckily, Michael Clayton was a thoroughly engaging movie, so it's stuck out in my mind, even after weeks have passed.

Lawyers, it seems to me (from Atticus Finch to whatever John Travolta's character's name was in A Civil Action), seem to be perfectly suited to movie star performances rather than character acting. If you don't know what I mean by 'movie-star performances' I'm talking about roles defined by the charisma of the actors playing them. I'm talking Tom Hanks and Jimmy Stewart, George Clooney and Cary Grant. Lawyers at least in film, often have to go in front of a jury and be charming. They have to compel the jury. They have to politick and convince others. Hence The Cloon is a fine choice for this role. He gives a wonderful 'movie-star' performance as a world-weary lawyer looking for more in his life. In their supporting roles (and as character-roles, I'll add) Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton and Sydney Pollack do an even better job.

This particular lawyer (like most real lawyers I'll add) rarely enters a courtroom. This particular lawyer is called a 'cleaner' in the film. It's his job to handle legal crises within his gargantuan New York fim. The plot is a thriller revolving around a lawyer who cracks (Wilkinson) and goes from defending a huge corporation to attempting to bring it down. The heart of this film however, is about The Cloon, struggling financially, emotionally, and morally with his life. It's a character study of a selfish man, morally weak, but not feeble. He understands that he's a little man manipulated by far bigger ones. Perhaps he's struggling between embracing the system , cowering from the system, or trying to fight it. Although, whatever his struggle he seems willing enough to profit from the system.

Surprisingly perhaps, he doesn't have an epiphany and then bravely stand up and fight the good fight - at least until he has no other choice. It's a wonderful portrait of a flawed man and what it took for him to learn to be better. He's a bit of a charlatan who is entirely willing to steal as long as the thefts were masked by enough layers of complexity that it doesn't obviously look like stealing to him. How many people would steal an online mp3, but not a candy bar from a rack on a store? Is there a difference? Nope, but the two crimes 'feel' different to the theives. To Clooney's lawyer there is a marginally corrupt system set up to enrich him and his type. His crimes are barely crimes at all, he simply looks the other way and doesn't think about the downside. He's probably even convinced himself that he's not wrong at all. Only when the crimes begin to get more serious (murder?), is Clooney forced to look more closely at himself. He was a man grudgingly willing to sell his ethics for personal gain. In the end he becomes a whistleblower and does the right thing, not because he knew it was right, but because he was left few other choices. It's a wonderful portrait of a conflicted, weak little man.

The plot that pulls this character portrait along involves Tilda Swinton as a CEO of a Con-Agra type global agro-business. Her company put unsafe products out in the market and tangentially some people died from it. Tilda Swinton didn't walk out of her house and kill a child with a gun. There were many layers of complexity between her decisions and a child's death. So she could hide her immorality underneath it all, at least until we see how far she's willing to go to coverup the intial crime. In some ways this is like Watergate. We see how the coverup step-by-step becomes far worse than the original crime. Eventually Clooney is forced to confront the corrupt executive and bring her down, but only after he himself is facing the gun. It's a terrific portrait of the billions of weak little humans who will sell morality for profit. There may be billions of better people out there, but there are a whole heck of a lot worse as well.

Standouts: Writing, acting, directing. A wonderful film.
Blowouts: Like many, many films these days it's a little too enraptured with the flaws in people. Almost to the point where we're not always sure if the movie agrees that they are in fact "flaws".

Grade: A

3:10 TO YUMA

Director: James Mangold (Walk the Line, Identity, Girl Interupted)
Starring: Russell Crowe, Christian Bale

I love westerns. Or maybe a better way to put it is that I love the idea of westerns. Yeah, I love gunfights with 6-shooters, and galloping horses through a narrow red-rock drywash, but even more I love the wide vistas and searing sunsets. I really love the rugged mountains and endless tall-grass prairies, the rickety wooden villages with snowcapped peaks in the distance. So what I'm trying to say is that I love the expansiveness of the western. The open lands of the west, just waiting to be explored. 3:10 to Yuma is a western through and through, but it didn't feel very expansive to me. In fact, it was probably the most internalized western I've ever seen (including Unforgiven). So much so, that I'm not sure that the western genre was the right place for this film. Heck, the main plot point here involves some people trying to catch a train.

Christian Bale is a rancher in Arizona. He owes money and days from losing his ranch. Russell Crowe is a bandit, a famous one, the leader of a ruthless gang. They cross paths by chance, while Crowe is commiting a stage coach robbery. Soon after Crowe is captured back in town, and Bale is offered $200 to help escort him to the nearest train station, a day's ride away.

Bale desperately needs the money, but as the story plays out, we learn point by point that even more than cash Bale desperately needs some success in his life. He wants his kids to see a hero, rather than a loser when they look at him. More than money he realizes that he wants some respect.

As the ad hoc group of guards escort Crowe across the Arizona desert, they are slowly picked off one by one. At times it feels like a cheesy horror movie as one character after another is killed off. And just like a horror movie, in the end the only ones left are Crowe and Bales. The difference here is that Crowe is a bandit with a heart of gold. I found Crowe entirely unthreatening throughout the film, although I'm quite sure that that's not what they were trying for. Crowe was supposed to be some wicked villian with a spark of humanity left in him, and that spark was pulled out by his respect for Christian Bale's character until the bandit learned to be good again. Unfortunately, I found Crowe to be a pretty nice guy throughout. I really didn't believe this guy who liked to draw pictures of animals in his spare time, and who gave horses back to the people he stole them from was a legitimate old west bandit. So that's one major strike for the film.

Luckily, the movie was good enough on most other levels to get past that 0-1 count. I said previously that the film wasn't very expansive. No, not at all. In fact it felt very confined to me. In many westerns it takes weeks to get anywhere. Here it's a one-day journey. Excluding a couple of big action sequences, most of the events happen around campfires, and in cabins, and hotel rooms. It's a very talky picture, considering it's filled with rugged, old western characters. The two main characters talk to each other and around each. From the bandit, Bale learns to take action. From the rancher, Crowe learns to care about others. Of course there's also the obligatory shoot out at the end.

In a lot of ways I found the movie unbelievable, even kind of silly at times. (Sorry Luke Wilson, but you should not have been in this film, no matter how small your role was.) These characters were not real people at any time, especially back in the old west days. What the film was, however, was pretty interesting. Crowe and Bale are good actors. There was a fair amount of excitement going on. The characters, while not believable, were fairly interesting. And that's the key here I think. Maybe there wasn't a ton of truth going on, but there was a lot that was interesting. It's an engaging film and that's the single most imporant thing a film can have going for it. It's a "thinky" western, a "talky" western. It's not a very authentic feeling western. I didn't really believe in these characters. I didn't really believe in the ending. Somehow, despite all of that, it also managed to be a pretty darn good western.

Standouts: Bale and Crowe, decent (if someone fantastical) screenplay. Solid direction.
Blowouts: Very fake feeling characters. These guys only ever existed within the author's head.

Grade: B

INTO THE WILD

Director: Sean Penn
Starring: Emile Hirsch

I'm back in the USA, folks, and ready to review. I'm glad to say that my first film since returning was a very, very good one. Like millions of others I was a huge fan of the bestselling Jon Krakauer book "Into the Wild". Wonderfully, seeing the Sean Penn film almost felt like seeing a new story to me, but really that's just because it's been so long since I've read the book. The film itself was a dramatization of the nonfiction story, but even with the amped up drama factor it still felt like the original. Or what I remember of it at least ...

Luckily I do recall the central premise of Krakauer's great bit of nonfiction (and even greater bit of jouralistic reasearch). Chris McCandless is a young man overcome with wanderlust, like so many people, but especially the young. He may be on a track to Harvard law school, but he ends up giving away all his money, abandoning his car, and wandering the western US like a hippie, hobo, and adventurer all in one. He canoes down the dangerous Colorado river into Mexico. He works for short spells at short term jobs. He eventually makes his way to Alaska where he walks off into the wild with a 10 pound bag of rice and endless optimism. Weeks later his dead body is found in an abandoned bus by some hunters.

Through Chris' own writings, and the trail of people he's met while on the road Krakauer gives us a wonderfully balanced, and wonderfully researched story about this young man's journeys, both geographical and pyschological. Some readers of the tale immediately react that this was just some young fool. I've seen quotes from some Alaskans who feel he's just some "lower 48'er" who didn't understand the realities of nature. Some other readers view him as a tragic anti-hero on the level of Jack Kerouac's Sal Paridise. There's no doubt that wanderlust is a very real and very powerful human trait. One that's seen through the ages. One that's resulted in some of mankind's greatest triumphs. Others still see a lonely and confused young man running from a dysfunctional family. The story here is all about the Why? The book is smart enough to not give us answers, only the questions.

The film, on the other hand, may be a little more pat with its answers, and that is the only fault I can find with it. Generally the film does a great job of staying true to the story. "Into the Wild", the film, certainly amps up the drama of Krakauer's story, but not in any detrimental way I think. The same mystery story is on screen (the Why?), but we also get more drama with the people he meets. As I said, the screenplay is a bit more pointed in its theme, however. Here Chris McCandless (Emile Hirsch) is on the road, and into the wild, because of his inability to connect with people - and the blame for that squarely lies with the parents.

For me, I think that there is quite a lot of truth to this, but it's probably not the whole story. I've known any number of people who've dropped out of society to one degree or another, and overwhelmingly their own fears, and family, and faults were the heart of their decision. But I think wanderlust is something probably quite a bit more than just that. Down deep, it's heart may be with how we connect with others, but "adventure", and the "seeing next horizon" is ingrained in our brains, I think. Our species seems to be natural explorers. Of course our species is also (rather obviously) naturally social. There's the conflict. We need each other. We need the group, but there's that urge to go out and find more, to seek more, to see more. Philisophically, poetically, geographically, whatever.

Into the Wild is good enough to capture all this, and quite a bit more that I'm just not talented enough to put in words. It's a very good story, and a very good film.

Standouts: The story, the direction, the acting. It's a fine film all around.
Blowouts: I thought the screenplay was just a little too over-insistant about his "aloneness", although there's no doubt it's critical. I'll admit that this complaint is rather minor, and perhaps just my personal taste, and that others may like a lot.

Grade: A