From All Movie Guide: Tony Gilroy's elegantly structured script for Michael Clayton offers a series of plot developments and character details that don't build so much as accumulate in the viewer's mind, until a thunderously entertaining final scene -- the kind of confrontation an old-time Hollywood mogul might call a "corker" -- pays them all off in a thrilling verbal face-off. As a first-time director, Gilroy maintains a steady, measured pace. His style serves his low-key but involving script, quietly adding layers to the characters while moving the plot along. The first-rate editing juggles timelines in the best possible way, allowing events to have a much different meaning when you see them a second time.

George Clooney gives another first-rate performance as Clayton, a man who can keep his clients' lives in order, but not his own. We know, because he is so good at his job, that he will figure out how to get himself out of the seemingly impossible position he gets himself into when his closest fri...

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