Will: You know what show has been on the air for way too long? ER. How could one hospital be packed with so much drama for over 10 years? If I was a doctor there, I would kill myself. Thankfully for us George Clooney did not, and as a result we got to experience his latest (and greatest?) movie, Michael Clayton.

Ian: While my opinion of the usually uber-generic Clooney doesn't tend to run so high, he puts on a really strong performance here. Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is at once the "fixer," "go-between" and "bagman" for a high-powered law firm. After sufficiently generating the legal backdrop, the real drama of the story unfolds when Clooney's law firm runs into troubles with their top-dollar client.

Will: One of the principle lawyers at Clooney's law firm, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), suffers from a crisis of conscience while defending a huge chemical company in a lawsuit from small farmers. The company sends Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton) and Clayton to contain the situation, which spirals increasingly out of control, revealing the true nature of everyone involved.

Ian: This film is somewhere between a character portrait of Clayton and, if I may (and I shall), a modern period piece. The legal overtones of this movie are never overbearing - despite a bit of jargon here and there, some fancy looking cell phones, Blackberries and Burberry, there's nothing to keep this movie from being accessible. But while it's not Pierce & Pierce Present Corporate Tort Reform, it certainly isn't Dr. Seuss either. This is an intelligent movie, and it has neither the will nor the need to gun-and-gore you onto the edge of your seat.

Will: It is a movie that asks you, the viewer, to actually pay attention during long speeches instead of just waiting for the next action scene. And these speeches are vividly interesting thanks to the superb writing and acting that go into them. Thomas Wilkinson's passionate tirade during the opening of the movie immediately draws you in and presents a stark contrast to the impersonal and legalistic speech used by everyone from the law firm and the company. The film builds suspense without resorting to gimmicky tricks like flashes across the screen or loud blares from stringed instruments that are the equivalent to just yelling, "Jump!"

Ian: This is a little odd to say, but I actually felt like I was watching a movie from before my generation. Because we've grown so accustomed to instant gratification, or at least a constant stream of loosely relevant puerile humor and cheap sex scenes (here meaning “second-rate,” not “economical”) to keep our attention spans, I was amazed to find a group of bourgeois family types dressed in expensive suits, holding relatively clandestine jobs. Clooney's role as "fixer" might seem a little Tom-Clancyesque, but as certain events come to pass you have no problem buying into the idea that a law firm could use this kind of free-floater to handle loose ends as they unfurl.
Will: And again, it’s the strength of the acting that successfully pulls off what could otherwise be a rather mundane drama. George Clooney hasn't acted this well since From Dusk Till Dawn, where he plays a bank robber who fights vampires. Tilda Swinton, better known as Gabriel from Constantine, is excellent as the desperate and unethical face of the company. I thoroughly disliked her character, which is a true testament to her acting ability.

Ian: Minus “one point” for not being able to contain your vampire fetish (we shall not speak of my own deep affliction for Kate Beckinsale in Underworld...). Swinton seemed to me a Jodie Foster inversion, disingenuous in character but not in acting. Wilkinson's character is given the most room for flair, however, and he makes good use of his delirium. Edens gets off his pills, and embarks on a mystical vision quest. Actually, his partial dementia allows for what is singularly the most moving scene of the film. I won't spoil the whole of it, but it comes during a moment when Edens’ ravings are suddenly objectified in Clayton’s own revelation, subject to an unusual muse.

Will: The movie is well crafted and every part connects to the rest of it. Good actors + Good writing = 5 stars. If you're into intellectual dramas that avoid being either overly commercial or presumptuously artistic, then this movie is for you.

Ian: Plain and simple, I wouldn't bet on a movie doing what this movie does, but better, not any time in the near future. So salute George Clooney's flawless hairdo, forgive him for the liquid hydro-carbon incomprehensibility of Syriana and see this movie. Unlike reading our reviews or your Business Etiquette for Golfers with Personality Dysfunctions seminar, it may actually make you a better person.