Michael Clayton

[Vic Sage]

Imagine a Grisham-style legal thriller, but with moral and emotional complexity and depth of character.

Thougtful and compelling.

Clooney is terrific. Tom Wilkenson even more so.

highly recommended.

[Guest sharpie]

Good movie but holes in it. Biggest one: why did he get out of the car?

Also, I know a whole lot of corporate lawyers, intense people like the Tilda Swinton character but still, none of them would kill for Monsanto.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Just saw it and liked it. 8/10

He realized the Westchester call was a set-up and sensed something with the GPS malfuctioning.

[Vic Sage]

sharpie wrote: Good movie but holes in it. Biggest one: why did he get out of the car?

while Monsieur Lunchbucket may be right, I don't think he got out for any specific reason related to the safety of the car or his situation. As i recall my feelings watching that moment, he saw the horses and was drawn to them for metaphysical, spiritual, thematic reasons. He felt so degraded and exhausted with his life at that moment, he needed to touch those horses... to feel something pure, beautiful, real, natural. And that impulse toward the pure ends up saving his life.

It's as touching, quiet and haunting a scene of redemption as i've seen in recent years.

[metirish]

Watched it yesterday, excellent movie with brilliant performances . I'll go with Vic's take on the horse scene.

[Guest themetfairy]

Weren't the horses in the same formation as in the picture in his kid's book? Isn't that why he stopped to look at them?

[Guest sharpie]

Whatever. Still felt to me like the screenwriter said to himself: "I've got to get him out of the car so it can explode -- let's have him look at some horses."

[Vic Sage]

if all he wanted to do was get Clooney out of the car, he could've just had him stop to pee on a tree. Of course, then, the gesture that saves him isn't one of purity and beauty, but one of having to relieve himself. so that whole "redemption" thing gets lost.

The fact that you didn't get the scene doesn't make it a "plot hole".

[Guest AG/DC]

Poll me.

(That is, make this thread a polling thread. Don't poll me, literally. And, please, don't pole me, literally. That's right out.)

[Guest sharpie]

Well it was either a touching moment of redemption; a screwy GPS unit; a parallel of a book cover; or a clumsy way to move the plot along. Kind of like the starchild at the end of 2001, open to interpretation.