My Problem with Michael Clayton

Sunday, March 23, 2008

I saw Michael Clayton a few days ago. It is now the only move I have seen from the 2008 Best Picture Nominees. I thought the movie was OK. The story was somewhat interesting, and it had a few plot twist that kept it entertaining, but overall I wasn't that impressed. It just seemed like any other movie to me. I sometimes think that the academy over thinks things. They want to be sure that whatever movie they nominate for Best Picture is cerebral and thought provoking. You will never see a movie like SuperBad nominated for Best Picture. I guess if the masses like it, it can't be all that great. Kind of snobbish really.

***SPOILER WARNING***

So my problem with Michael Clayton lies with the villain, or more appropriately the people the villain hires to do her dirty work. They commit the near perfect murder when they kill Arthur, making it look like a clean suicide. There was little doubt by anybody that Arthur killed himself and that there was no foul play involved.

Now cut to Michael Clayton. He discovers the dirty secret and they decide to kill him too. So what do they do? Instead of killing him cleanly, they decide to do him in with a car bomb. What is more obvious that a murder took place than a car bomb? Don't you think that this second murder, a very obvious murder, arouse suspicion on the first death? How can criminals go from smart to stupid in the span of a few hours? If you want to kill him in the car fine, cause it to go off the road or something else like that. But a car bomb? Really?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

they kill him with a car bomb because he is a bag man, a fixer, a janitor, all terms they use in the movie. they made it out to look like someone killed him that he double crossed doing business with the firm.

what you are supposed to see in michael clayton is that he has connections with criminals, with dirty cops, with corrupt politicians, and if something hypothetically went wrong with a deal he made, or he owed someone something and waasn't coming through, a person like that would kill michael clayton.

it was again a perfectly planned murder through that lens.

Anonymous said...

Clayton was involved with many shady possible underworld players as the firms "fixer" plus he borrowed money from Russian mob so car bomb could make sense