Michael Clayton

Watched Michael Clayton over the weekend. The movie starts off in the present where we see Clayton (George Clooney) at a poker table where another player talks to him about the restaurant that he was running along with his partner and what happened to that. We hear his phone ringing and he steps out in the middle of the game.

He is asked by one of the partners in the law firm where he works to go and meet a client of the law firm who was involved in a hit and run case. This is where we understand that he is the "fixer" in the law firm, often adopting out of the way methods to get things done for the clients. On his way back he stops his car to have a look at some horses on top of small hill and his car explodes then. He runs to his car and drops his watch, wallet and other personal stuff in to the burning car and runs away. The scene then cuts to 4 days earlier. Things then start falling in to place.

The story revolves around Clayton and people he meet, their actions and his reactions. With his financial life in a mess, Clayton is asked to get another top litigation specialist, Archer, back to the office. During a client meeting, Archer strips naked and starts blabbering. He is under custody when Clayton meets up with him and starts behaving funny. Clayton figures out that Archer has not been having his medication. With promise from Archer that he will continue medication he prepares to bring him back to NYC. Archer escapes from Clayton and runs away.

The third important character in the movie is Tilda Swinton. She has been appointed newly as a director and wants to prove her worth to the organisation (U-North). At this juncture we understand that Archer has incriminating evidence against U-North that they have wilfully used carcinogenic agri products that are very harmful to humans. Instead of defending U-North in the class action suite that is going on, Archer starts collecting evidence against U-North. When Tilda gets to know this while going through Archers bags, she is terribly upset. She hires 2 professionals to handle the situation. They tap Archers room and install bugs in his apartment. Archer in the meanwhile in trying to get one girl from another city to testify against U-North. Tilda has Archer killed and has everyone fooled that it was a suicide or accidental death due to medication. Clayton however gets a receipt of a copy store and gets hold of the evidence that Archer has and calls up the girl, Anna. He understands that Archer had asked her to come to NYC. Clayton suspects foul play.

This is when the scene cuts to the scene in the poker table and the subsequent car explosion, which is again triggered by Tilda once she understands that Clayton now has the evidence. Clayton gets to know that U-North is going for a settlement and that Tilda is the one who is orchestrating this. He confronts Tilda with murdering Archer and trying to get him killed. Tilda initially refuses but when Clayton informs her that he still has the evidence and that there are 1000 copies of the same ready to be distributed she gets a little jittery. And in her haste she accepts to the offer from Clayton to remain silent if she pays a sum of 10 million to him.

The moment she accepts to his offer verbally, we hear Clayton say " You are fucked. You are so fucked" and slowly pull out his mobile phone that he used to record and relay the conversation to police officials. We see Clayton walking down and handing over the phone to his brother-in-law, a cop and in the background we see Tilda sitting down covering her face understanding the enormity of the situation.