Michael Clay­ton

Think TS Eliot with­out the poet­ry; think ​‘The Hol­low Men’, think cor­po­rate lawyers in their waste­land of bland. Michael Clay­ton is so grey it leaves a metal­lic taste in the mouth. Make that grey and beige with salt and pep­per side­burns. George Clooney is cop/​lawyer crossover Michael Clay­ton – he’s the guy who cleans up when the legal eagles turn a blind eye to a chem­i­cals client who’s been poi­son­ing the public.

For Clay­ton, it’s usu­al­ly a case of indus­tri­al bleach, marigolds and a ser­vice wash, but this time he’s com­pro­mised. Look­ing for a pay-off, his men­tor, Arthur (Tom Wilkin­son), threat­ens to expose the whole she­bang, only to end up a ​‘sui­cide’ sta­tis­tic. Smelling a sar­dine, Clay­ton turns inves­ti­ga­tor, sleuthing slap bang into a plot so full holes and so lack­ing in humour that you’ll be will­ing him to turn into Dan­ny Ocean.

And yet the film is redeemed by a few remark­able fea­tures. The first is the sym­bol­ism of three hors­es on a hill­side. They save Clayton’s life and, more, rep­re­sent an ele­ment of spir­i­tu­al­ism – that there is hope beyond cor­po­rate matters.

The sec­ond is a shock­ing mur­der, a sequence that’s so cold-blood­ed, bru­tal, effi­cient and with­out sen­ti­ment that it intrudes on the film with gut punch­ing impact. And the third is the last five min­utes – sure­ly the rea­son Clooney agreed to do the film in the first place and a blessed relief.

Every­thing absent from Michael Clay­ton is sand­wiched into the pay-off; it’s fun­ny, sat­is­fy­ing, involves a man and a woman (albeit Til­da Swin­ton in snow-queen mode) and, for once, is one step ahead before throw­ing you into an inter­est­ing coda. If direc­tor Tony Gilroy had start­ed there and worked back­wards, Michael Clay­ton might have been more Magritte and less painting-by-numbers.