I've never made a regular habit of doing movie reviews in the blog; in fact, the only one I specifically remember doing was Spider-Man 3. But I wonder if perhaps establishing such a tradition might give us incentive to be more consistent with our movie rentals. We've fallen embarrassingly behind in our exposure to new films over the past couple of years. So over the weekend we rented two of the movies nominated for Best Picture of 2007, and my reviews shall follow forthwith. So without further ado...

MICHAEL CLAYTON
starring: George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson, Sydney Pollack

Having rented this movie just two days earlier, Pollack's death yesterday came as a bit of a shock. For what it's worth, his performance in his penultimate film as an actor is solid, as was that of the rest of the cast. In fact, the performances by Clooney and Swinton alone make the film a worthwhile endeavor, as both were quite worthy of their Oscar nominations. But the rest of the film is a mixed bag.

The production throughout is superb. The filmmakers managed to create the perfect ambiance without resorting to an overblown soundtrack or weird editing (the de facto standard in the industry for the past decade). Director Tony Gilroy manages to convey the sense of Clayton's structured life slowly unraveling despite giving us very few particulars in the way of character development.

Unfortunately, the development of these characters (or lack thereof) is by far the film's greatest flaw. They all seem like fascinating people, but this is only explored on a superficial level. Based upon the deleted scenes on the DVD, it appears that the script had given us a lot more depth regarding who Michael Clayton was and what motivated him to do the work that he does, but all of that was left on the cutting room floor.

The one character who could have best helped the film in this regard was Anna. She's supposed to be the victim--the one who gets us emotionally invested in the plight of the innocent at the hands of the Big Bad Corporation. And yet we learn nothing about her. Aside from a couple of offhand remarks about cancer, we never even learn what exactly it was that Big Bad Corporation did to her and the other victims that was so horrible... and yet this is the most fundamental aspect of the plot. In fact, Tilda Swinton's portrayal of the corporate attorney was so gripping that I found myself sympathizing with her... and I don't think this was the filmmakers' intention. I had to keep envisioning her as the White Witch of Narnia to remind myself that she was the bad guy.

Part of the problem with a film where the writer/director is one guy with two hats is that there's no one to step in and offer perspective if the film is becoming too self-indulgent. At it's core, this movie has a pretty straightforward paint-by-numbers plot... and there's nothing wrong with that if it's done well. But in Michael Clayton we have to wade through a slew of red herrings thrown at us by a writer who really isn't half as clever as he thinks he is. The most egregious example is the scene near the beginning of the film with the horses, which is set up to infer that some extraordinary revelation is taking place. But the scene ultimately is proven to be just a pointless nod to a Mysterious Red Book, which itself is a macguffin, serving only to feed the delusions of the Wilkinson character.

Just to be clear: Even though the tone of this review seems decidedly negative, I didn't hate the film. In fact, I'd give it a marginal recommendation. But I do believe that the Oscar nomination for Best Picture was perhaps a bit undeserved, driven more by the performances of the cast than the strength of the screenplay.

Next up: No Country for Old Men