I'd heard about how good this movie was and how good Mr. Clooney was in it so I figured I'd give it a go. I mean why not it's free from the library - one of the best places in all the world, where I can full fill many of my indulgences: books, movies, musics and comic books and they're all free.
First off George Clooney doesn't do anything remarkable in this movie that he hasn't done in previous films. He basically plays Danny Ocean if Danny Ocean had become a lawyer, which isn't a bad thing because I liked his Danny Ocean character, but would the media people would please stop butt kissing him like he tried something new to challenge himself with his movie. Because he didn't.
This is a good typical corporate/lawyer thriller only made bad because of some directional and screenplay choices. Why do movies think they have to have flash backs all the time? I seriously blame Tarantino for this and even he had no idea how use a fractured narration for the story. This movie does it very early in the film when a car driven by Clooney's character, Michael Clayton, blows up and the words "Four days earlier" pop up on the screen.
Immediately I groaned.
Then as the movie started to roll on I'm already trying to figure things out because of the car blowing up - pacing wise this destroys everything that makes a thriller good because I know any "dangerous" situation or threats made to Clayton are devoid of any tension as I know he was still alive when the car exploded. The director even tries to milk the car bomb explosion for tension as the guys trying to kill him keep following him around trying to get the bomb to explode and the music is the typical tension type of inducing music. I kept yelling at the TV because there's no tension there. Just get to the exploded car because I already know it explodes without Clooney in it. So, I know he doesn't die, you've already shown this scene before.
I just wish they had started this movie in chronological order I think it would have been much better because the character Clayton is an interesting character as the movie shows, but they just needed to have faith in their character and story. He's just not giving that chance because that car exploding mixed with the narrative time shift ruined all form of momentum and took me completely out of the narration. Time fractured movies that worked well: Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia, Out of Sight (I say this now but I haven't seen this movie in a long time, I remember it working at the time but I should probably watch it again), and The Usual Suspects. These are just a few I can think of but for the most part as I'm thinking about it straight up normal narration works the best. I just don't understand how people don't know this.
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